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Building Trust After Cheating

You never thought it could happen to your relationship right? But then you find out your boyfriend or girlfriend cheated on you. How do you recover? It isn’t easy, but it is possible. If you stay in the relationship both parties need to be on board because it isn’t an easy road to navigate.

My suggestion for the cheater is to be more transparent. When you’ve gotten caught cheating then you lose the right to privacy at least for a while. The best way to build trust is to open up your life to your partner. If you have nothing more to hide, this should be a simple step. It is humbling, but a little humility can go a long way to repairing your relationship. If you did the crime, now you have to do the time. If you love your girlfriend or boyfriend it is definitely worth the effort to prove to them that you are now an honest, trustworthy person. You can’t expect your partner to trust you blindly anymore. You lost that privilege. For a good long while, you are going to have to prove it.

This means opening up your cell phone. You shouldn’t have to keep it on your person at all times like its worth a million dollars. If your partner is feeling insecure and asks to look at your phone, you should let them. If you have nothing to hide this will make you feel good to show them that you aren’t do anything wrong. It also means opening up your email and Facebook accounts to them. If you do break up later, you can always change the passwords again. You should agree to cut off all communication if possible with the person you cheated on them with. If you do still have to see this person in class or at work be very open about your interactions and try to minimize your interactions with this person as well. Relationships are work and repairing a broken relationship is even more work. Don’t expect to build trust back in a few days or weeks. It will take some time to recover, but don’t give up trying to prove that you are now being loyal.

Tip: If your cheating partner remains very defensive, be aware that they are most likely still hiding something. Defensiveness means they feel guilty or insecure about something. They should want to prove their honesty to you if they are in fact being honest.

If your partner is being open and transparent with you this will help you move forward and gain back some confidence in yourself and in the relationship. You also have to work at building trust. It is going to be easy to want to exact some kind of revenge to pay them back for your heartache. Try your best to resist being negative or hurtful. This will only hurt, not heal your relationship. If you have unresolved anger, try to figure out healthy ways to work through it. You have a right to feel angry, but if you want to keep your relationship intact, you can’t just go off on them any time you feel like it. There is a time to vent your frustration and hurt. It will help your partner to hear about the hurt feelings underneath the anger. True feelings draw people together, but anger pushes them apart. Help your boyfriend or girlfriend understand your feelings instead of shoving your anger down their throat.

You also have the right to go through their emails, Facebook pages and phone for a certain amount of time. You are wiser now, and will be able to recognize the signs better if they decide to cheat again. After a certain amount of time, you should know whether you can trust your partner again. You won’t have to be so vigilant and check up on them as consistently. Don’t be afraid that you will be taken for a sucker. Be smart and if some old behaviors return have a discussion and try to figure out what is going on. If your partner starts to be secretive or overprotective of their privacy at some point again in the future, that is a huge red flag. You then have a decision to make and it doesn’t make you a sucker for trying to give someone a second chance. Some people are going to use that second chance to prove to you they do really love you and some people are going to blow it. If they do blow it, you still can hold your head high that you did everything you could to make the relationship work.

Some people are more private than others. I’m not saying you don’t have a right to privacy in a relationship. However, the person you choose to make an intimate partner should know a lot more than other people in your life. They have the privilege of getting past some of your walls. If you are dating someone who is very private, even with you, be cautious. If they guard their phone like Fort Knox, be cautious. If they get defensive easily, be cautious. These things aren’t healthy in a relationship. Ignorance is bliss, but knowledge is power. The more time you spend together and the more you are able to share your thoughts and feelings with one another, the better. If you choose to stay together after one of you has cheated, you will need to spend time together to build back the intimacy. You don’t have to spend every waking moment with one another, but it helps if you start paying attention to each others needs and put each other first for a while.

Buliding trust is based off your instinct with the person. Yes you caught them but what was the mottos why. If the person truly loves you then you will feel the person deeply cares. But then you ahve to be careful with people running game (trying to get back because they messed up). The heart tells the truth, eyes tell nothign your heart tells alot.

Thanks so much for your comment! I agree about trusting your instincts, however after someone has been burned the problem is not being able to trust your own instincts or your own heart. After someone has cheated it is easier to trust concrete practical ways of showing love. Words don’t always mean a lot, actions say a lot more to someone after they’ve been cheated on. Trust isn’t always easy, but it is possible. I appreciate your insights and agree that if a person does truly love you, you will be able to feel their love through their actions.

My girlfriend cheated not that long ago while under the influence and it was with her ex..she gave me her phone password and said I can check it whenever and she hasn’t shown signs of cheating since but I’m still kinda cautious about it because I love her. This really helped. Thanks!

Me and my bf went thru hell, he cheated, and I wouldn’t know it4 sure if I didn’t went to dr. Since than I have flash backs, I gave him second chance and I feel I shouldn’t,because I will always torture myself with thoughts that he will always find some woman cute,sexy, call them amor,boo!!! This was my first time that I loved a man so much and he just dropped me! I try to look at it from some not so conservative point of view and how every woman is beautiful and its a lot of ppl that would want me still more than him, so I still feel so sad,anyway he try to show me calls,tx,facebook, and still he got password on his phone,so that tell me:its something he hides… Easier would be:move on,move out of state,country,pain that I feel, I can’t tell no1!! I just wanna hide and cry,but somehow I still love him, wish I didn’t!! So much from me -sany-32-ny

It’s hard to break a relationship off even when you know that person isn’t treating you well. Give yourself some time and it will become easier to do the right thing. It’s also hard when you don’t have anyone to talk to. Try to write down your thoughts as much as possible to help yourself process through them. You do deserve better, but it is almost impossible to walk away if you still have hope it can work out. Either he will continue to hurt you to the point that you eventually say “Enough!” or it does get better and things work out. It gets easier to know in time which way things are going to go. Thanks so much for reading and commenting on this post.

I would like to share my story with you, Becca and I truly deeply hope you can give me some advise on how to build back the trust after cheating on my bf.
I met my bf during college time and we be with each other almost 3 years. When we started our relationship, we really attached to each other. Unfortunately, after we completed our study and we joined the working life, things changed. I met different guys and i flirted around. I have to admit that I’m not a good gf, I never think about his feelings, throw temper on him, complaints and compare him with other guys (those who coming after me), scolded him useless, never care about him and so on (I know i’m a jerk, but seriously I so regret what i had done to him and I really love him). Also, I have a scandal with one of my colleagues and he found out, so he started checking my email and laptop. I always tell him, he will always be my first priority and he is my official one, others are just a short term. From there, he started to not believe me and he don’t trust me at all.
Last week, out of sudden he said he wanna break up with me. I was so shocked and i thought he was just joking. But he said he is not and he has no feelings and doesn’t love me anymore. I begged him to give me one last chance, I will fix this and i tell him how much i love him but he said he don’t trust me and he feels very stress when he is with me. Now only i realise how much that i love him and how stupid i am.
Becca, can you give me some advise? How can i build the trust? Do you think there is possibility for me to get back to him?

Thanks for sharing your story MJ. It’s hard to be honest about your mistakes. If you’ve read a couple of my other posts you know I’ve mentioned putting someone through so much pain that they eventually are able to leave the relationship. Sometimes when this happens there is nothing you can do to win back their trust. At this point, I would suggest listening to what he is saying. Maybe tell him that you don’t want him to feel stressed so you will give him some space, but that you do still care and would like another chance. Ask him if there is anything you can do to show him that he really is your first priority. It is hard to believe those words when you have put several others before him. He would need to see you sacrifice time for him and discouraging others when they try to flirt with you. It is possible to take advantage of someone to the point where they lose feelings for you. You would really need to make changes to turn those feelings around.

Give him some time and in the meantime try to do things in your life that would convince him you really are trying to change. Put him first. Use actions to show him you hear him and want him to be happy, even if that means giving him some space. Until you change your mind about trying to get him back, don’t be flirting with others or doing things that would get back to him and convince him you really can’t change. Does that make sense? You want to act like you are in a committed relationship even though he’s broken up with you. If you are hanging out with a lot of guys and that gets back to him it may push him farther away. In time if he still doesn’t give you another chance then go ahead and move on. No one knows how long that may take, but one day if he doesn’t come back you will just give up. I hope that doesn’t happen, but even if it does, hopefully you’ll be smarter in your next relationship and will avoid this from happening again. Good luck!

Hi ! I hope you can respond Back to me as well ! My boyfriend & I have been together for a year & a half and we broke up because one of my guy friends told him I was cheating on him my entire relationship. He told him stuff about my past too that my bf was mad I never told him. The cheating thing was all lies but the other stuff was true. Me & my bf got back together which was hard because we went through a bad break up but we tried it again he promised he would trust me . Now he did a 180 his personality the way he looks at me I have to force compliments out of him half the time if I try to tell him how I feel he doesn’t want to hear it. He is completely different from how he was and I’ll say it’s out of spite but he’s hard headed he won’t admitt it. But I’m so faithful to him I love him everything I do is for him seriously I hurt him ya and he heard horrible things but the thing is he believes all the lies. Why did he get back with me if he isn’t going to give me his all or he knows he can’t ? Should I stop asking what’s wrong , I’m afraid he’s going to cheat cause he thinks I did . It’s a messed up situation :(

It is messed up and I’m sorry that the lies have made things even worse. Somewhere in his heart he still cares, but he may be afraid if he acts nice then he is giving in too easily and giving you too much control. So he is holding himself back to protect himself. It happens a lot and is typical. However, it starts to really ruin the relationship more than the other stuff from the past. All you can do if you love him is to be patient. Let him be upset for awhile and try to be yourself. Don’t get too upset or that just throws fuel onto the fire. If you can be calm even when he’s being a jerk he may come around and realize he would be losing a really good person if continues to push you away. If he doesn’t change though, at some point he will end up hurting you too much and you may end up having to break it off. Just keep telling yourself that he is hurting and try to be patient.

If he was writing to me I would tell him to do things to let go of his anger if he is choosing to stay with you. That if he isn’t able to get past it he should think of breaking off the relationship. Since he isn’t, I believe he still has feelings, but isn’t sure what to do about the anger he feels. Since you can’t control what he does I can only suggest you give him some time if you love him and aren’t ready to break up and hopefully he gets better with you over time.

My boyfriend and i have been dating for 3 years. He decided to study abroad starting in July of 2011, and i was really upset. To me, it felt like rejection towards me because we have always done things together, and for him to be gone for 6 months halfway around the world, and the busier i got with school and the busier he got with traveling everywhere, i started to push him away. i felt as though he didn’t want me anymore like he had once did. This was probably the wrong thing to do at this time because we ended up taking a “break”. During this break we still talked occasionally, but a boy i was hanging out with (as a friend) ended up trying to kiss me. I told my then s/o about this incident, and since then we have been having a rough patch. he thinks that i cheated on him, and that he can’t trust me. He says that he doesn’t thnk that someone that loves him so much would do that together a week before he was to come home. He tells me he can’t get the images out of his head, and thinks of it constantly. I told him in November, and now its March, and its still going on. He doesn’t understand how i could love him. I am trying so hard. I have cut all contact off with this other boy, and i have been nothing but all about my boyfriend because i really do love him. Just two days ago, he said he needed time and we broke up so now we have been going No contact. I am not sure how to fix this. Should i just continue to give him his space and hope eventually he will come back? It hurts really bad because i really do love him, and although i did the wrong thing by pushing him away while he was away, this kiss meant nothing, nor did the boy. i love my boyfriend and think cheating is so wrong. i am not sure what i can do. I feel as though i have tried everything and its going no where.

Sorry that you have been going through such a rough time. My gut tells me there is something else going on than just this kiss you had with someone else. Your boyfriend may have other issues with the relationship but chooses to focus on just you kissing another guy. Everyone makes mistakes. You have done everything you can to prove that you love him and earn back his trust. If he isn’t able to get over it, then there isn’t much else you can do. I know that completely sucks. No one likes to feel helpless. All I can suggest is to let him know you still love him and hope he will give you another chance, but that in the meantime you’ll give him his space if that is what he wants. Then you cry and cry and cry some more. It is okay to be sad. Hopefully he realizes what a great person he is giving up, but if not, hopefully someone else will realize how great you are some day. Read my most recent post “I can’t live with out him”. It talks about why you feel you’re going through withdrawal during a break up. Take care of yourself.

I would really like to hear your though about what I should or should not do… Here is a little recap abt my story. I started dating my boyfriend almost 4 years ago.. we ve had our rough moments but we always made it through them. however, in september, we both were doing internship and we started to become like roommates… i felt our relationship had become routine and a lot of people put S*** in my head that we were together just because we were used to living with each other… and i started to believe what they said… i met this guy while getting back to dancing salsa. at first he was just a friend but things got deeper.. my bf was always with friends playing games and his friends were always sleeping over and i felt we had absolutely no privacy or “relation”… i started to feel for that other guy.. i pushed it away for quite some time but ended up giving in.. it lasted a week before my bf caught me talking to him on facebook (he had a feeling that there was something going on and many time bfr i actually did the act, he warned me but i didnt listen…. WHY!!!!). on this message, i was asking the other guy what he was looking for, if he wanted to be with me or what? (the night before my bf and I had a talk and decided we couldnt go on anymore) i was so confused at that time.. i was crushed bcs my relationship ended but also still felt feeling for that other guy… when my bf figured it out he called me and i went to our place right away. he confronted me and i ended up telling him all the truth. he was really hurt but after a few days of anger he still wanted to give us a chance. he really loves me and care for me.. i realized after a few days away from my bf that the feeling i had for the other guy were not real.. i just invented them in my mind because he was kind of an escape from whatever i didnt want to face at home (i was a coward.. i was weak…) however, while we tried to work things out with my bf, he suddenly decided he couldnt be with me bcs he says that the fact that i had feeling for the other guys hurts him too much.. but it was not Real…. i was crushed.. i was sick for an entire month and barely could get out of bed.. i had the worst thoughts and almost destroyed all my future career plans because of it… i got some help from my closest friends that helped me to get back up and my bf was also here.. my friend convinced me that if i still loved him, i should learn how to love him as a friend.. to wish him happiness. i talked with him and we agreed to try but both side have still strong feeling for each other. he went home for 10 days to “clear his head” and i was almost the only one he gave news to. every time we are together we just cant help but to hold hand, hug.. but every time after a few secs, he pushes me and apologize… i moved out but while he was away he told me i could stay in our place (its so much more like home for me it really help to make me get back a little up). he just came back today and as before nothing special but some hugs and hands holding… i keep hoping.. bcs i know he still loves me… but will that be enough.. wont he drop his love for me after some time… I try my level best to be here for him, give him all the passwords he might want… i never cheated before and honestly i really never did anything “bad” in my life before that.. even my family did not recognize me when i told them what i did because it was so unlike me.. i know i cant turn back the clock but i wish i could.. i love him so much and i m willing to do Anything… i know giving him his time and space is important but i cant stop thinking that with all this time, he will only convince himself harder that he must stop loving me.. we had such a wonderful love i cant believe i ruined it.. i ve read so many blogs about getting back with the person after they cheated, most ones say that its not possible or it will not work in the long time etc but am I a fool to believe he will find in his heart the strength to forgive me?

Sorry for such a loooooong story but i think its important to explain everything to understand…

Thanks for sharing your story. It is too bad he is struggling so much with what happened. It also sucks that there isn’t much you can do but wait. If you’ve opened your life up to him all you can do is hope he takes the risk to take you back. It is really hard not to have that control over the situation. You probably feel very helpless. You don’t know if time will help or pull him away. All I know is that pushing him isn’t going to help. If he is going to forgive you, he will even if you aren’t in his face all the time. If he eventually moves on, then I believe eventually you will too. I know this for sure. When one person makes a decision that affects two people, the one being left isn’t screwed over for life. Again, it sucks to not be in control, but if he doesn’t come back, you will eventually be okay. In the meantime you are allowed to feel sad. Just take care of yourself and be yourself. You’ve learned from your mistake and if he doesn’t realize that then it really is his loss in the long run. Hope this answer was helpful to you.

thank you for your answer. unfortunately, i dont think he will ever come back but after all it is his choice and I must respect it. It ‘s still very hard but for everyone in my situation, with time (i know this sentence sucks) the pain goes away… i dont think i will ever stop caring about him but when you love someone you gotta learn to let them go when what u did to them was too much to overcome in their head. for everyone in my situation, try to realize you have to have a new start.. try to meet new friend, even if it s not that easy and it can be hard to smile around people, eventually, smiling will come naturally… Dont feel like your the only one in this situation and that you cant overcome it.. because I believe you can. You just gotta be strong and wait. after a while, the tears will go away, the thought of what happened will fade.. and hopefully you will realize that u must move on because u cant erase what hapened. and with time you might find something even better than what u had. (trust me i know right now it probaby feels imposible… but realize that u had a life before meeting that person.. and that life was probably a good one). I just wanted to write this for other people in my situation to show them that after a while, it does get better. even though im still struggling, i feel im finally moving forward.

Hello Becca,
I’ve been in a relationship with my girlfriend for about a year and 4 months until I broke it off twice because she moved away 3000 miles from where I live to continue her growth in her life. We were together for a year before she moved and we were doing great! The relationship turned different for me once she left because I wanted to stay committed especially with the long distance. The first time I broke up with her was 2 months into her moving away but I wanted her back. She took me back and I went to visit her in Hawaii. I came back home another 2 months passed and I cheated on her. I kept it a secret from her and I broke up with her because of my building guilt. I felt like I couldn’t be trusted anymore. Through that breakup, things turned sour really quick. She already had her lay and started dating someone else. She was planning to come see me already before the breakup to visit home. She did come see me and we had our natural strong connection spark up again. I really love her. But I failed to mention the affair I had. I was too wound up in her already finding other people. She left and a couple of weeks later she is telling me that she wants to come back home for me and start all over again. That’s exactly what I wanted to hear and we started talking again. But I had to come clean about my affair. That’s where I stand now, I recently told her everything and every detail. She is so hurt and I feel helpless because she is so far away. I want her back but she is on a emotional seesaw because there isn’t any ways to be seen that she can trust me again. I am willing to build that trust again with because I love her so much. But her pain is something I have to put in the factor because I do want to see her happy. Even if that requires me to back off. I just don’t know what to do anymore…

Thanks for sharing and commenting. You did the right thing by telling her. Hopefully if your connection is strong enough you’ll be able to work through this. It is very hard to wait and see what she is going to do after hearing your news. You can try to reassure her, but only time will really help her to trust you again. Hopefully she’ll give you the chance to prove that you love her and will remain faithful. Give her the time she needs and continue to answer her questions as honestly as you can. Ask her if there is anything else you can do and wait to see what she says. I hope it works out!

I’ve been reading through your blog for the past few days and I’m really amazed/impressed to see how many of the situations you’ve described relate to my personal life. I Would really appreciate to have your thoughts/impressions/opinion about my story…

In a nutshell, I met this guy about 4 months ago and we started dating and it was great, for him it was love at first sight and while I had interest from the start, I prefer to take my time.. The only issue was that before him, I had a “friend with benefit” whom I thought I was in love with since we were texting every days and nights (only to realize now that it was only attachment and habit…maybe a little bit of oxytocin thrown in there:P) And this friend didn’t want to be in a relationship at this point in life…so I decided that I would put all my efforts into this “new guy”. This new guy had asked me if something happened between me and that friend and it was very unfortunate that I had decided to lie and to say that we only kissed. My intention behind that wasn’t to keep on doing it, on the contrary, I was getting away from it. Of course, he ended up finding out and was hurt and felt betrayed (which is totally understandable) and decided to end things with me (we were never an official couple, although we acted just like one). Post “breakup”, he said he would never ignore me and still wanted us to talk since I was different from all his previous girlfriends…until he probably realized that it was more hurting than anything else and deleted me off facebook and everything.

And then I wanted to show him that it was him I wanted to be with so I wrote him a letter a week later, which included my feelings for him, everything that I didn’t have the chance to tell him and the fact that I didn’t want to pursue a relationship with the friend if it meant losing him. He answered that he wasn’t ready to forgive me yet…that maybe he would one day, that only time would tell us… Now the tricky part is that we had originally booked a trip together (obviously he didn’t go with me) and the day of my departure, he sent me a text with only a ” :( “. When I got back, we exchanged a few lines, I had asked him what he did during his vacation…he said he hung out with his friends. Only to discover a day later with my obsessive facebook stalking that he went to Cancun??! I reasoned myself that it was only normal for him to get out of town as well, and it didn’t owe me any explanations at all considering our broken relationship.

And then it was my birthday…he sent me a text wishing me happy birthday and we had a small conversation, very casual… and here we are, exactly a month after the “breakup” and I’m still crying my heart out for the loss of something so great. Was celebrating at a bar with my friends until hell broke loose and couldn’t stop the tears from coming. Is it appropriate for me to still have hope in us? He had mentioned to me how different I was, how he never felt this way…He can’t possibly walk away from this forever? I mean I understand he needs time to heal but we were so great together, it can’t just finish off like this, can it?

I’m trying to go on with my life, but every second, every minute, every hour is just so long and unbearable without him… Sorry about the novel I wrote, this was the best I could do! Thanks for taking the time to read it…much appreciated!
Have a good day!

I can see why you still have hope. As long as you do, it will be hard. Time will tell, and if he continues to pull away your heart will eventually let go. Until then you may have really bad days where you cry a lot and other days when you feel a lot better for no reason. I’m not sure what is going on in his head. Some people do really weird things when it comes to relationships, most of the time out of fear. My advice is to give him the time he needs. When he does reach out to you, you can play it safe and not bring up the relationship. Or you can be more daring and let him know you are still hoping for more at some point. It is hard to know what the right thing to do is in the moment. Trust your gut, and hopefully if it is something real, he will recognize it and give you guys a chance. I wish you luck. Hang in there!

Hi, thanks for your advice
I have a trust problem with my bf, we are together 8 years now, I have been blindly trusting him until 2 years back when I saw he had an account in fb and had his ex as a friend (he told me that he didn’t have fb) anyway it was obvious that there is nothing going between them but I lost my trust! I left him for that but he tried hard to get me back and I agreed, and he closed the fb account and gave me his email password but still I couldn’t trust him, he tried hard to get my trust back but I couldn’t , 2 months back I found that he has sent an email for a girl and told her that he missed her, and also I found out that he is talking to another girl which was his best friend (he told me that he is no longer talking to her) but I found out that he is talking to her, and he said that he talked to her just to help him in getting my trust back!! after that I left him I was so hurt and he came back to me and apologised and I went back to him after he said that he will stop talking to her, but I can’t believe that he really stopped talking to her, I can’t sleep at night thinking that maybe he is talking to her (am sure he loves me and he dose not love her, I talked to the girl and she told me he loves you a lot and he is just like a bro…) He said that he stopped but I still can’t trust him? We are at the point that he is ready to leave me if I can’t trust him! I love him so much and I don’t want to lose him, do u think he is worth my trust? He did not cheat on me as far as I know but he keep promising me that he will stop talking to girls but he keeps talking to them behind my back, do u think I should trust him? And is it worth to break up for this reason? Thanks and sorry if its too long

If you read my post, you know that if you’re going to stay in the relationship you need to find a way to trust him again. It sounds like he has really tried to regain your trust. It also doesn’t sound like he is trying to hook up with these girls. If what he is texting or emailing to these other girls is inappropriate, then you maybe need to consider moving on. Otherwise, you want to find ways to let go of your insecurity. If you’re a great girlfriend, then he would be an idiot to cheat on you. However, if you are becoming more and more insecure it may push him away. I know it isn’t easy, but the only way you will be able to have a successful relationship is that both of you want to be with each other.

I was hoping you could give me some advice about my current situation. Me and my bf have been dating for almost two years. We were apart for about 4 months because I left the state. When I left I got really depressed and lonely because I had no friends or family where I was, and was living alone. I ended up cheating on him which I’ve never done before to any of my boyfriends and it was also messed up because out of anyone I’ve dated before, hes the first person I’ve actually really loved. I know its all my fault but i felt tricked because the person I cheated on him with just used my sadness against me to get me to do things I’d never do. I never even liked the guy, and thinking back on what I did I don’t even understand what was going through my head and it bothers me so much. I just wish I knew why I would do something so horrible, it kills me that I became one of those people I hate.

Now we are still dating and he is trying to forgive me but it is so hard. Our relationship is happy most of the time, but things aren’t normal like they used to be. I’m trying so hard to build trust again by telling him everything but It’s hard to do because now he is starting to tell me nothing about his life because “I don’t deserve to know anything because he wasn’t the one who cheated on me”. It doesn’t seem fair to me and I don’t understand how a relationship is supposed to get better when one of us is trying to open up and the other is starting to be more secretive just to bother me. I really trust him and I don’t think he would ever hurt me but I just don’t know what to do. How am I supposed to make our relationship healthy again? I feel like I can’t talk about my feelings without having the conversation turned back on me and making me feel like I’m a horrible person who does everything wrong. I already feel bad. I just want things to get better and I don’t know how. It has been about 4 months. I know people don’t heal fast.

It is hard not to get really down on yourself. However, if you’ve come clean, apologized and now being very open, there isn’t much more you can do. It is hard to wait for your boyfriend to let go of his anger. Hopefully he will soon. I always say that revenge for cheating is to break up. If he is willing to stay, it isn’t really fair that he take his anger out on you by being secretive. You are right, it will only damage the relationship further if he continues to do this. It is okay for him to be angry, but it would be more helpful if he could talk to you about it rather than shut you out just to “get you back”. Emotions aren’t logical, so I can see why he is reacting this way. He may not know how to handle his feelings. I’m not sure if he would hear you out, but if he doesn’t let go of his anger but chooses to stay in the relationship, eventually one of you will be in so much pain that one of you will leave. The best way to heal from cheating is to talk and spend time together to build the trust back. Hopefully he will be willing to do this with you.

Hello, this is great but I have questions. Hope you can help. My bf cheated on me and I gave him another chance. We been together for years but this is not something I got over. Hes not the most honest person and I still see stuff that shows me theres more he hides. I don’t think he cut all ties with the girl he cheated on me with. But now I have no way to find out since he is more cautious and makes sure I don’t find out again. What can I do to be sure he is not lying to me this time? How can I catch him if hes still cheating on me? Things seem fishy. I want to hear your thoughts?

If you think your boyfriend is still lying, there is no way to build back the trust. I’m not sure if you’ll be able to prove it or find a way to catch him cheating. If you don’t trust him, then it is a good idea to break up. Then if he really wants this relationship to work you can ask him to be more open. He has nothing to lose by continuing to lie if you are still there with him. You may never be “sure” that he is not lying to you unless he is willing to be more open. If you get the sense that he is hiding things, then I would suggest looking for someone that may not cause you as much stress. It won’t be easy, but living with someone who you think lies to you all the time isn’t easy either. Good luck!

So here’s the deal. My girlfriend and I were together for two years. We broke up last week. About 1 year ago, I went on craigslist and was talking to people about hooking up with them, nothing ever happened, but she caught me and gave me another chance. About 4 months ago, I got caught doing the same thing. She finally just ended it with me last week, since then I have realized how big of a mistake I have made. Also for the past year she was texting a guy that she worked with, they were friends and I figured no big deal. Today, she told me that they have had a crush for the past year. Nothing ever happened between them, just texting. I love her and I want to make it work, what do I do? Thank you.

Not an easy question to answer. If you want to make it work, then you should tell her. However, remember that it takes two to make things work. She needs to be on the same page and both of you have to want to commit to the relationship. If only one of you wants this, it won’t happen. Hopefully you can tell her how you feel and she’ll agree. If not, then you can wait to see if she changes her mind or do your best to move on. Good luck!

Hi my boyfriend and I have been together for close to five years with a brief break up two years in and another brief break up last year. A couple years ago I found out that he had cheated on me during our first year together with my best friend. It was really hard to forgive him since we had already gone through a really rough patch with a brief break up, and eventually found ways to fix our relationship and got back together, so I felt like that would have been the best time for him to come clean and let me know rather then having let it fester. It really took a tole on our relationship. Last year we broke up again for a few months and in January got back together, I had realized that no matter what our relationship had been through, that I loved him dearly and wanted nothing more then to be with him, at this point I had already made plans to move to another state and wasn’t going to change this based on our relationship, we both have a lot of growing to do and it was what was best for me, plus he’d been planning to go to university in the next year or so, so we could re-evaluate out living situation then. He proposed to me and a couple days later I cheated on him. I was intoxicated and don’t actually remember any of it, but was able to put the pieces back together enough to find out that i had in fact cheated on him. I told him immediately, he still put the ring on my finger. a few days later is when i moved out of state, he was calling me several times a day, texting me, keeping in contact, doing all the little things that are necessary in a long distance relationship but after about a month he turned sour, He never wanted to talk to me at all, eventually he came to visit, i had no idea how this would go since we weren’t talking, i only knew he was disgusted with me. The trip went alright but he was never willing to talk about what happened. He never once told me he loved me, except at the airport before he left. After that he never responded when i said i love you, he would just move on. We’ve talked a lot since (I cheated six months ago) and its been really hard to get things back on track, ive stressed the importance of doing the little things otherwise it wasn’t going to be able to work, he knows that he wants to be with me, but he can’t seem to get what happened out of his head. When we talk on the phone he hardly speak to me, he insists i call him every night to let him know im home safe but his idea of a conversation is giving me a rundown of his day and me giving him mine, quickly and thats it……. I’m so torn up, I understand how he feels but I don’t feel any love from him even though he says he knows he loves me and he wants nothing more for this to work, it doesn’t feel like he’s putting in any effort. When I explain to him that i understand how he feels, ive been through it with him too, he insists that i don’t, because I cheated after we got engaged so he feels its SO much different and SO much worse. I do agree that it’s worse but when it comes down to it, he had sex with my best friend, my ONLY girl friend, I don’t think we should be concentrating on who’s more at fault here. How do I pick the pieces back together again?? I love him but I’m hurt by the disreguard he gives me, and he’s hurt by my betrayal.

Thanks for sharing your story. Cheating is so hard to get past. When someone cheats it automatically makes the other person feel insecure. Then the mind tends to betray you in so many ways. If you love him, try to be patient. Ask him what he wants or needs from you at this point to help the situation. If he still wants to be in the relationship it is going to require work on both sides. If he continues to push you away, eventually its going to work and you’ll be so upset you’ll just stay away. If that happens, then he’ll have to decide if he wants to work to get you back. He may come to the conclusion he doesn’t want to lose you before that happens. Right now, he feels like you owe him and basically that means he can do what he wants and you just have to deal with it. This happens a lot. He feels you were selfish and he is being selfish to even the score. He may not be consciously thinking this way, but it is playing out that way. Ask him how much time he needs to work through this. He may not know, but also let him know you aren’t sure how long you can stay in a relationship with someone who doesn’t show any love. If he is unwilling to work, there isn’t a lot you can do. You either go along for the ride and hope he comes around, or you make your own decision about if you want to remain in the relationship. You can’t force him to let go of his anger. Just try not to react it to in a negative way which can make things worse. Try to be empathetic, but also let him know how it is affecting you. You have your own boundaries and like I said earlier if he continues to cross them eventually you’ll walk away. I hope it works out, but both people have to want it to make it work. Good luck.

Hi, my boyfriend and I were in a relationship for 4 years. We recently broke up because I cheated when I was drunk. I just wish I could sincerely apologize again and let him know I will do anything and change to get him back.I want to respect his space but I feel like if i don’t contact him, then he will think I don’t care, when in fact i cry and feel guilty everyday all the time.

I know I **** up. I got black out drunk at a party with girlfriends and ended up hooking up with a guy. I didn’t even know this happened until a few days later when my friends told me. This guy took advantage of me. I know it’s not an excuse and I put myself in this situation but I’m not this type of person. I have never done anything like this before in a relationship and never will again. I’m giving up drinking and don’t want to ever put myself in a situation like that again.

I sincerely and truly love him but things haven’t been that good in a while. And as bad as it sounds, my friend said it makes sense why it happened. They say they haven’t seen me truly happy in a long time and that I do so much for my boyfriend and don’t get it back. But honestly, I have NEVER thought about cheating in my whole relationship and I don’t even understand why I had this sudden urge.

I want to apologize to him again but he told me to leave and he doesn’t want to hear anything I have to say or see/talk to me again. So I don’t know what to do?

It is hard if he won’t acknowledge you. It makes you feel really helpless. I would say try writing him a letter to let him know your feelings and apologize. That gives him time to read it and think it over and it gives you a chance to say everything you want to say. He may rip it up, but at least you tried to make an attempt. I’m not sure what other way you could use to get him to hear you besides waiting to see if he calms down enough to talk to you. Hang in there, people don’t usually stay angry forever, and it truly is his loss if he doesn’t give you another chance because he is too angry to try.

Hey.. You don’t have to read this if you don’t want to. Its probably the longest response yet… :/ I am just desperate and I dont know what to do.. I have no one to talk to about it so heres my release of almost everything that has happened over the last two years. (there is a hell of a lot more)… Hope you find the time to reply…

I am really struggling at the moment.. I have been in a relationship with my boyfriend for two years now. All throughout the relationship his ex girlfriends have been saaboutaging it. Telling me he has cheated, knowing things only he knows about me (for example the day he took my virginity), hacking into his facebook and breaking up with me online.. I keep telling myself to trust him.. But it has been really hard.. Every time I start to trust him, he gives me a reason not to.. He has always been really defensive and I know he has secret facebook accounts, some of which I know and some of which I dont.. I have also found messages and calls to several of his ex girlfreinds and even girls I havnt met before.. I have heard some terrible things that he has ‘apparently’ done to these girls.. People talk about him as if he is a monster who preys on women.. Manipulates them and treats them like slaves.. His ex girlfriend before me was with him the longest.. She has told me stories, some of which make no sense and the man I love could not have done them.. And some of which happened between us.. Its like he is repeating the relationship he had.. We have broken up and gotten back together several times… Mainly because he has been hiding messages from me. Some calling his ex girlfriends beautiul and sexting them etc. I managed to overcome my trust issues enough to have a relationship with him. But then months later we went through something together that pushed us apart, we both did something that goes against our morals because of a lack of communication. After that it all started again.. I found hidden contacts and messages from his ex girlfriend and other chicks I have neer heard of before.. I freaked out. I wanted answers.. I wanted someone to tell me its all a misunderstanding.. I approached him about it and he got angry with me for looking on his phone.. I didnt intend to… It just lit up with a message on there… He said his ex called to apologise for all the lies she has told and all the times she as spit us up.. But when he called her and said I was there she hung up… That night I reactivated my facebook (he wanted me to deactivate it so I couldn’t talk to any of my friends who were guys) to ask Jess and her boyfriend (or so I thought) about what was going on, hoping to recieve something to say that its all in my head and he isn’t betraying me and he never has… She wouldn’t talk to me… Kept telling me to ask him. I then spoke to her boyfriend and he said that he broke up with her for talking to my boyfriend again.. For sleeping with him again.. I kept talking to this guy and I had met him once before.. He was asking me what was wrong.. Because I was so much happier the last time we met. He kept guessing until eventually he figured it out. He kept telling me it wasn’t my fault and that I had to realise that my boyfriend wasn’t who I think he is. That I am deluding myself..I started to believe him.. My boyfriend had been pushing me away everytime I tried talking about why I was upset.. He said it was because he hates seeing me hurting when he cant solve the issue for me.. This new guy was listening and being kind.. He convinced me that I liked him.. We met up a few times and in the few times he did some stuff to me.. I said no but he did anyway.. I stopped him the best I could every time.. Then hed say sorry and tell me something that made me feel sorry for him and forgive him.. Even though he did these things I still believed I like him… I kept going back.. Eventually I decided it doesn’t matter even if I do like this guy.. I love my boyfriend and I told this guy it was over. The next day my boyfriend got a call explaining everything I had done… I have never cheated before and I hate myself for it… I never had sex or did anything back… I’m not saying what happened was ok.. I’m just saying I feel regret and guilt and disgust.. At first I denied everything.. Then eventually my boyfriend said that if I ever wanted to move past this and fix things with him I had to tell him exactly what happened.. I told him.. But I couldn’t help but hide some stuff. I dont know why I was terrified of losing him… I just wanted to be his again.. I love him more than anything.. He knows everything now.. But he kept finding more and more stuff out over the week. Wwe tried meeting up. He wouldn’t even touch me.. Eventually he did, and we instantly started doing things… I love him and I dont want to lose him. He said I can try fix things but hes not sure he can ever forgive me.. I had to block all the contacts I had on facebook that were male, I had to delete all my phone contacts that weren’t family. I had to tell him everything I did and everyone I talked to. He wanted all my passwords and he wanted me to go to uni then come home. Not to do anything else unless it was to see him.. I was ok with this… I understood he needed to gain my trust back.. The only problem I had was that he was messaging all these girls and I wasn’t allowed to see because we werent together anymore.. He has added a million people on facebook.. Including people that tried to break us up and all the people that liked him and he was accused of cheating on me with… Hes going out with friends without me and hes going to a party at a bar.. I said something to him and he went off at me saying I have no right to make any calls. I just have to prove myself and if I’m not willing to then to leave.. I cant leave I love him to much.. Then the next day he said its over.. And that what happened was unfortunate but he cant ever forgive me.. I really don’t want it to be over… I said I’m willing to prove it… And I’m willing to wait. All he said before he stopped talking was that I can try to prove it all I want… But not to hold my breath…
I want him back.. I want to fix things… At the same time I am afraid that he has been lieing the whole relationship and I really don’t mean anything… I know I was wrong and I am willing to accept whatever punishment I get… I want him back… But I am afraid theres nothing I can do… As long as all these people from his past don’t leave us alone… We are never going to work… What do I do….?

It sounds like you guys have a lot going on. Sometimes too many things can happen in a relationship and it can be hard to ever get back to normal. I have to tell you that I think he has been very hypocritical with you. He has messed up, but then he was really harsh with you when you messed up. You both would have a lot to prove, but it is obvious that he has all the control in the relationship. Trust me, you want to be with someone who wants you as much as you want them. This relationship sounds very unequal. However, love isn’t rational. If you love him, you’ll put up with a lot unfortunately. You’ll continue to love him and maybe things will get better, or he’ll hurt you so much that at some point you’ll be ready to move on. I don’t know what you can do at this point. It sounds like you’ve done a lot to try to earn back his trust. However, he doesn’t sound like he is willing to work at all to forgive you or try to earn back your trust. I wish I had a better answer for you, but I think over time if he doesn’t change, the relationship will really be over for good. Turn to your friends and family for support if he continues to shut you out. Cry, scream, write, talk, sleep…whatever you need to do to get through the hard moments. Hopefully he tries to work things out with you, but if not, you still have to work to take care of yourself. Hang in there…

I just want everything to go back to how it was.. I know what I did was wrong. It is nothing like me.. I dont care if all the a ccusations of what he has done are true or not.. I just want hime back.. I have never felt this way about anyone before.. He wont let me.. He wont talk to me.. He is changing his number so I cant even try being friends, he has me blocked on fb. Any time he does talk to me he just keeps saying horrible things. Like I am a whore and I dont deserve to be with anyone. And that even if he could forgive my actions which is unspeakable because what I did was unforgiveable.. He wouldnt want someone like me near his future children, let alone be their mother. He says I wouldnt be fit for a mum because I would abandon and hurt them… I was wrong I admit that… But is this really neccissary? Is there really no way to ever forgive myself and have him forgive me to? I dont think I can keep going on like this…

Hey, hope you can share your opinion on my story too. My bf and I have been in a long distance relationship for 2 years now. We met online and only met in person last year. Around half a year after we started dating, we also started phone sex but we never done the deed because I chickened out when he came to visit. Also, my bf is in the army and although his schedule has always been hectic, we try hard to talk everyday. My bf went to a training camp this month and couldn’t bring his laptop with him. And he hasn’t been at the base much, only around twice a week so we barely talk on the phone too. I’ve been missing him like crazy. Yesterday I had a day off and my family went out of town, suddenly the loneliness hit me hard. I didn’t have anyone to talk to or turn to. I was just surfing the net, talking to random people on sex chatroom (I was horny). A guy chatted me up and I found myself replying to his dirty talk, so we ended up cybering. I felt really horrible after that and just left the chatroom without even saying anything to the guy. I hate lying to my bf and when he came online today, I confessed to him about it. He was understandably hurt and really mad. I tried apologizing a lot of times and promised not to do it again. He said he forgave me but when I called him, he sounded distant and cold, I couldn’t stop crying. I’m still crying at the moment. He wanted to know how far into details have I gotten with that guy, when I told him it was almost the same as we did in the past, he stopped talking altogether and I didn’t know what else to say. I’m just thinking if he wants to break it off with me, I’d just say ok because I can’t stand having him doubting me over something that I already done. I don’t want to give up on him so easily but it seems like he’s never going to forgive me for real. What should I do?

Thanks for sharing your story. I would tell you not to give up on him so quickly. When most people get this kind of news it is a shock. The first emotions are fear and hurt but they are almost instantaneously covered up by anger. Anger takes a few hours, days, weeks, sometimes even months to work itself out, depending on the person and the situation. Give him some time to work through his anger and then you’ll really know where you stand. Some people hold on to anger and it does end up ruining the relationship no matter what you do to apologize. Other people will work through their anger more quickly and be able to forgive and move forward in the relationship. It is hard to be patient because their anger brings up a lot of guilt for you, the person who messed up. You want them to let it go as soon as possible. However, if you push the issue, it can make it worse. All you can do is tell them your sorry and ask them what you can do to earn back their trust. Once they feel less angry, they will then be able to talk to you about it. In the mean time it is okay to cry and feel upset. This should help you in the future because if it is really painful and embarrassing then you won’t want to feel that way again any time soon. This will keep you from making this same mistake again. Pain is a good teacher. It means you regret your actions and hopefully will make different decisions later when you feel lonely. Trust me, you aren’t the only one, it happens, but it can have long lasting affects which hopefully most people won’t repeat. Take care of yourself and hopefully you’re boyfriend will forgive you. If not, you’ll figure out a way to move forward on your own in time. Hang in there…

Hey Becca, first off I just want to say how helpful your blog has been and I really hope you can help me in my situation. Sorry for the long post! I just had to get it all out. So, I’ve been dating my bf for 5 years and we’ve known each other for two years before that. We’ve had our ups and downs, but somehow we’ve made it through. We’ve really been trying to work on our relationship and actually talk about our feelings and not hiding things from each other. A big issue that’s come up between us over the past few years is that I am not as affectionate towards my bf and on the other hand he is very insecure and jealous. We’ve taken 2 small breaks bc of these issues and 2 longer breaks, but every time we always come back to each other. As the years have gone by we have improved a lot, I’m not saying things were perfect, but we were in a really good place. If someone was upset we would talk about it, instead of holding grudges and just brushing it away. We were so in love and so happy with each other. Then I just recently found out that we was at a party at my sister’s apartment (she wasn’t there, but her roommates were and they all know that me and him are together), and that there was a girl there who was hitting on him all night. They were poker partners and she kept leaning in close and whispering in his ear, etc. He kept pushing her away and whatnot, but she kept saying to drink and everyone else was drinking so he did too. From what my sister and some other people at the party told me was that he started hitting on the girl back. I confronted him about it and he said no she was the one hitting on me. But then my sister sent me texts that my bf sent to that girl. I told him about that too and he said that he got really drunk and that he doesn’t remember anything. The texts show him wanting to hook up with her but she had already left, but the following morning he apologized to her. I asked him why would he apologize if he didn’t remember what happened and he said that he saw the texts and he realized he made a huge mistake and wanted to make it right again. But then there is another text sent from him to her a few days later saying that he was playing poker and that he needed his partner. So I asked him about that too and he told me that he wanted to keep her as a “friend” (his quotes not mine) so that she wouldn’t do something bad…like I guess tell me. So now I don’t know what to do bc this is so completely out of character for him. Everyone I know is shocked bc my bf is not the type of guy to do something like this. But my family and friends are telling me to not get back together with him bc this incident is a warning flag of what could and will happen down the road. They feel like we are not good for each other. Yet, I can’t seem to walk away. I see how we are when we’re good and I see how we are when we’re bad and I know that we would have been ok in the future if we kept doing what we were doing in regards to working on the relationship. But, now my trust is so broken and it hurts so much to just think about all this. I want to be with him and he has apologized so many times and I know that he is truly repentant. But I just don’t know if I should go back to him or listen to my family. I feel like if I do go back then he might think that he can do something like this again and I’ll be ok with it. Please help!!

Thanks for your comment. It can be hard when your family isn’t happy about the relationship. They see how hurt you are and think the best thing is for you to move on. Sometimes they are right, but sometimes a couple works things out and the family is wrong. It is a risk to take him back. Just because you take him back doesn’t mean he will take advantage and talk to other girls. I would let him know how hurt you are. Sometimes knowing how close you are to really losing someone can make you not repeat a mistake again. He may be afraid to lose you. You can let him know if you find out he has been talking to others girls again then you will have to leave for good. Then just see how things go. If he is open and continues to be honest, you will start to feel more confident again. Ask him why he was tempted to talk to this girl. Was it an ego boost for him or did it have more to do with your relationship? See what he says and that may help you make your decision. If it was just an ego boost, you can talk about how he can avoid that kind of trap in the future. If it was about the two of you not getting along, maybe you can discuss what needs to change to make your relationship more solid. I hope this helps you out. Good luck!!

Hi there I am seeking a little advice on my sex life. I am 18 years old and had been with my boyfriend for 4 years until he cheated on me. He says it wasn’t my fault and that he jut wasn’t thinking at the time. I left him for about a week or 2 and he ended up in hospital one night after drinkin bleach. He felt horrible enough about it to do such a thing. But now that we are back together I feel as if things just aren’t the same. I still love him but sexually I am uncomfortable. He was my first and only so I have put a lot of trust in him for looking after me in that way. It has been almost a year since he cheated but we have only been officially back together for 6 months. In this time our sex life has been a little difficult on my half. Sometimes while we are having sex I think of what he has done and I break down then I feel like I’m not good enough in this department. Sometimes I just loose my sex drive completely… And other times I just go ahea with finishing when I feel horrible about myself.. My body, everything. I think maybe this is why he cheated in the first place so I let him go ahead as we would have before he cheated. I know he’a a teenage boy with needs and it must frustrate him stopping in the middle because I get upset and break down. Is there anything we can do to fix this or make our sex life better? He assures me he would never do anything I wasn’t comfortable with and that he loves me and my body no matter what but I can’t help feelin the way I do… Advice?! :( I feel this problem is affecting other parts of our relationship.

I appreciate you sharing your story. It is common not to feel good enough after someone cheats on you. Cheating not only affects trust, it also affects you self esteem. However, if he is telling you he loves you and you know he is no longer cheating, you have to focus on building back your self confidence. He can tell you all day long he thinks you’re beautiful, but if you don’t feel that way, it doesn’t always help. The only person that can reassure you is YOU. You have to believe that you are good enough no matter what happens. At this point you may not feel good enough to have sex with anyone. It would be worth your time to seek counseling to process your feelings and work out a plan to build your confidence back up. It can be hard to do on your own because your own brain is a master manipulator. Don’t give up. You can feel good about yourself and your sex life again. Remember, he was the one who made a mistake and should be feeling shameful. Not you. He’s right, it isn’t your fault. However, it may take more than me or your boyfriend to tell you this. Again, seek more help if you continue to struggle. Building confidence isn’t easy, but it is worth it.

I already wrote a few months back but I just need to talk more.. It’s been already 4 month that my bf found out and broke up with me.. I thought I was finally starting to “get over him” until the day my mom to the USA and we had to stay in our old place (where my ex is still leaving) because I don’t have space where I live nor money to pay a hotel) as it was planned since months… I just saw my ex for a second… and I felt all the work I have done on myself for these months became obsolete… We ended up talking with my ex… he says he doesn’t want to be with me anymore and that he cant forgive me. But then he keeps contradicting himself with his action… he will tell me that and 10 min later he will hug me and kiss etc… He decided to try to at least start over as “friend” to at least stay in each other life because we really miss each other but it is SOO hard.. also, he met a girl that he randomly hang out with and hook up with.. she doesn’t want to go out with him so it makes it hard for me to analyze if she s just a rebound for him or if he really likes her… what I don’t get is how he can hug the girl and kiss her and then, come back home, check all my msgs while im sleeping and then get kinda mad bcs im talking with other guy… I don’t do NOTHING with those guys compare to him with that girl… I know he has all the right bcs we re not together but he makes me question everything…When I ask about that girl, he doesn’t want to answer… he says he doesn’t want to know about if I was to date other guys etc… No later than yesterday night, he came back home and I was sleeping and I woke up and we slept holding hands and this morning, I realized that he spent the evening with that girl again.. how can he do that… is it revenge.. is it really bcs he feels something for that girl… is it because “we re used to each other” that he acts like that when I m around… I don’t know anymore… I cant sleep, I cant eat.. I know I need to take care of myself but everytime I feel like im finally getting back up, I just end up falling back harder than bfr… sorry for all these but I feel like I already bothered my friends way too much since the past 4 months and they have worst to worry abt than the consequence of my mistakes…

It can help to write out your feelings. People process their feelings in different ways, but it can be quite overwhelming when you feel you have to hold everything in. Thanks for sharing your frustration. I’m sure others can relate. It is hard to move on when you are getting mixed signals and are in close proximity to your ex. You aren’t super human. It is natural to be drawn to someone you were so close to. That is why I always suggest having really good boundaries after a break up. It can be too confusing to spend time with your ex and be “just friends”. Hang in there…hopefully things will get easier in time. Also, work on not falling into old traps and try to avoid him as much as possible.

We just had a talk yesterday and he told me he was still in love with me and he was missing me.. He asked me for time… When i asked him if he wanted me to wait for him (not hook up with anyone else), he told me he couldnt handle the idea of seeing/knowing I am with someone else… I didnt touch anyone since we broke and waiting for him (even though I know he might decide to never come back) seem like the “best solution for me… However, after we talked, he left to his friends bcs they were having some dramas and he needed to help.. however, an hour later, I reallyyyy felt sick. I felt like i was loosing consciousness and texted him… i guess i kinda tested him but he barely even gave a shit… he told me to lie down and relax.. i was really expecting him to at least come check on me or EVEN send me a text sometimes after i told him that but nothing… he came back to the house at 4am drunk… that really hurt my feelings because i feel he doesnt really have my “back” anymore… and I dont know what to do… I know im talking a loooot in here but I really need it… i tried to find counseling website but I couldnt find any…. Iam not feeling myself and everytime i feel a little better, the next day brings more bad ….

I just don’t know how to trust my boyfriend after finding out he’s lying behind my back and flirting many times with his co-worker. I’m hurting. I don’t know if I should give him another chance or no more. I’m so hurt.

I wish I could tell you what to do. It is very hurtful to be lied to and it is hard to know what the best decision is. It really depends on how he reacts and how he continues to treat you. If he is remorseful and changing his ways, it may be worth it to try again. If he doesn’t think its a big deal and continues to be secretive, I would be more cautious. Hopefully time will give you better perspective on what choice to make. In the meantime, continue to watch his actions and see if they match what he says. That will help you to know whether you can trust him again or not. Good luck.

Back when my now husband and I were dating, when I was 18, I kissed another guy when we hit a rough spot in our relationship. My then boyfriend saw it, and we broke up. Eventually we did work through it and we got back together. Eventually we got married, and we were together for a total of 11 years when he started talking about children. I freaked out and started pulling away, thinking that I didn’t want kids. He did everything he could on his part to figure things out, but I kept pulling away. One night I went out with people from work to drown my sorrows, and ended up hooking up with a coworker. My husband found out, but I couldn’t bring myself to admit it anyways because of all my shame and emabarrassment. I didn’t want to lose him, so I started to go see a psychiatrist to fingure out what was going on with me. I found out that I had been OCD, and had clinical depression, and was put on meds and had to go see my psych. 3x a week. My husband is not a believer in psychiatry, but he made a choice to stay. I stopped speaking with the coworker and no longer work there, gave him access to every electronic messaging I am a part of, and leave my phone out for him to check whenever he wants. Eventually I worked through a lot of issues, including my issues with children, and we got pregnant. After that, and a little more treatment, I was finally able to tell my husband in my own words what happened. That was two years ago. But he still doesn’t believe that was I told him is all that happened, and he told me recently it is still too fresh in his mind to forgive me. The incident happened over 3 years ago now, I have been taking his digs at me ever since because I feel that I deserve them. We now have two kids together, and they are beuatiful and deserve to grow up in a home with two parents, so I know that I have to hang in there for them, but I don’t know how to deal with a husband who tells me he isn’t sure if he hates me or not…I just don’t know what to do. And I know that I will never be able to forgive myself until he is able to forgive me. Do you have any advice for me?

I appreciate you sharing your story. I wish there was something I could tell you to do that would help your husband to let go of the past. It is hard on both sides. He may still feel you are going to betray him and you have to continually be reminded of a shameful mistake. It sounds like you’ve done everything you can to deal with your issues and move past them. You can tell him how you feel and the reasons why you want your marriage to work. Show him how much you want him and love him even when he has a hard time showing you, it is hard, but sometimes it helps. Other than that, it really is up to him to deal with his feelings. If it continues it may cause you to want to leave and at that point you’ll need to let him know how desperate the situation is. It is hard to forgive yourself when your spouse won’t, but it is possible. All you can do is promise yourself not to make that same mistake again and hopefully in the future both you and him will be able to move past it.

ive been with my boyfriend for 5 years.we are both grad students in college. we broke up the 1st year together because he was cheating on me. during that period of time i started dating another man. But when I saw him again after 4 months i fell back in love with him. I realized I never stopped loving him. well just recenly i told him about his friendships with ex girlfriends/ lovers who he was still in contact and would publicly display affection on facebook and other social networks. He would try to tell me its nothing and im tripping and keeps his phone attached to him like crazy plus he has a password. Well when i found out he was cheating i begain to become closer to a friend who i have a natural attraction to and who im very close with. We became sexual and at times i felt bad but when i thought about him cheating a felt i shouldnt. the reason why i cheated was to get revenge and i know that wasnt right He found out and we had huge arggument. I decided to become completly faithful, i never locked my phone, i changed my phone #. i did everything possible to make our relationship work but he couldnt do the same for me. so I decided to give him space because i love him and i couldnt continue to get hurt and i didnt want to hurt him by cheating agian. . so the past month we havent had any contact with one another but recently he wanted to talk. I told him that we need to start over and build our trust up again.So im seeing him tomorrow to talk but i dont know it its time for me to walk away because he will never change or to set standards in our relationship and build from a friendship in hopes that when hes ready to settle that we could one day be togther

You have known him a long time so you may be at that point where you know he’ll never change. It is a hard call. He may still have some power over your emotions and seeing him could make it harder to walk away. I always tell people that some things have to play out until they are completely dead in the ground. If you have doubts, it is likely you’ll still give him another chance. Hope can be really strong and if he is able to give you hope, you may want to try to see what happens. If he has changed, things will go well and you’ll stay together. If he hasn’t, it will be clear pretty quickly and you can decide to walk away then. The chances of you missing out on the love of your life because you give your ex another chance is very slim. That is why most people will choose to take the chance. I know some people are reluctant to take chances because they think they’ll look stupid. I don’t think that way. I always say the heart is going to do what the heart is going to do. Eventually the heart will give up after enough pain, until then it is really hard to walk away. Hopefully it works out, but if not, you aren’t an idiot for trying. If it doesn’t work out, then analyze what qualities about your ex you don’t want in a new person and pick someone different next time.

Wow all the words said here are good…..my boyfriend cheated on me and I am always checking his phone….I’m glad its ok to do that…I hope that my relationship will my boyfriend will be normal again…thank you

Thanks for your comment. Is your boyfriend okay with you checking his phone? It is better if he is open with his phone instead of you needing to sneak peeks. Either way, hopefully at some point you’ll be able to trust him more and won’t need to check as time goes on. Good luck!!

HI I have been with my bf for nearly 3 yrs. I just found out the other day he was cheating on me while i was asleep upstairs. I woke up to hear him talking/ something else to another woman. We met on a dating site about 3 yrs ago and when him and i first got together i deleted all accounts, so it came to a bit of a shoker that i found out he was still on the one we met. Going through hell at the moment and really not sure what to do. He keeps saying sorry and it was a stupid mistake but how can i ever trust him again. He says this other girl donty want anything to do with him but do i have to beleive this.

It will be hard to trust him again, but not impossible. If you find out he is off the site and then stays off the site, you may be able to build your trust back up. If you catch him in more lies then it will continue to break the trust further. At that point you will be more ready to leave. At this point, it may be worth it to give him another shot and see what happens. People can really change when they realize what they might lose. He may be willing to change his ways in order to keep your relationship. Trust me, you’ll be able to tell in time. It doesn’t make you a stupid person to give him another chance, even if he blows it. You’ll be able to say you tried and gave him a chance. That may make it easier to walk away even though it’s hurtful no matter what. Hopefully he is truly sorry. Give him some time to find out what he does…

Hi I’ve read a few of these post. My gf and I started in high school then completed college only to break apart the last couple months before graduation (April 2011). We always argued when it came down to exams or stressful studies. She began hanging out with a few new friends she made. I eventually was extremely upset as well as angry when she was pushing me away and even wanted a break. She acted out a couple of times dancing with couple of guys at a dance and even “stood me up” during another college grad dance. I eventually went to her place to talk. She tried to hide in her room turning down music, lights and tried to be quiet. She finally opened the door and another guy was on her bed. Both were fully clothed. Cops were called because I was extremely angry that she could do this to me. Then when I asked if he was staying with her tonight. She replied “yes.” I cut all connections. family etc. Months later she showed up at my door step and claimed she was saying that to be mean and hurtful. Of course we argued and I cried and she cried. I wish she would never have come back because those feelings of that horrible “L” word keep coming back. At the same time my memory has not faded nor is it blurred. Her family is not the best at times. She ended up getting on anti depressants. But anyways. I have forgiveness but I have a hard time trusting her as well as forgiving her. Even though in my heart I can forgive her but its hard. We were together for almost 6 years. And now what would have been 7. I care for her a lot and I’m trying to let what happened go or just except it. Guess I’m searching for closure or not sure what I”m searching for. Maybe answers for human understanding? “Why” would be the initial and most simplest form that no one can really answer. I’ve never seen a therapist or counselor. Usually I just talk to friends but they do not understand. They’ve never been though this. And you have to remember this girl and I shared EVERYTHING and did EVERYTHING TOGETHER and have bonds with each-others families. Two Options: Mend it together or Break up.

Thanks for sharing your story. It is very hard to let go of someone you shared so much with. Cutting all ties is very painful, but often the only way to move on. That is why when she came back all your feelings came flooding to the service making it hard to know what to do. Love doesn’t always make sense, so it isn’t easy for friends or even a counselor to give you advice. All I know is that time will force an answer to whether you are able to stay and work it out without further hurting each other …or you do end up hurting each other more to the point that someone definitely closes the door on the relationship. I always say, try to work it out until it definitely can’t work anymore. I also always say, you’ll know when you know you can’t take any more. The in between time can be very painful, confusing and all together torturous. I think that is where you are at. So hope for the best, but know either way, you’ll make it through this. Hang in there…

Hi, I want to vent to you. Me and my boyfriend have been together nine months, and along time ago, he cheated on me emotionally over the computer. It took me months to get over it, five to be exact. All we ever did was argue and throw anger at eachother. I was broken and I needed him to understand but he didn’t. He had some issues in the past, his ex girlfriend cheated on him and had sex behind his back, it made him not want to be commited anymore. I tried to help him, I tried so much but it never worked. He cheated on me for three months. I was so broke and shot down, I had no idea what to do with my life anymore. But I got over it and we moved on. The other day I noticed a change in him, we went on a break because he changed and he really wanted to make me happy by being who he use to be, if that were possible, give him time to cool down. I agreed. I think he’s depressed.. So we started talking again, and he said he needed to telll me something and that I was probably going to hate him, he said he couldnt believe it happend. The day he told me this, earlier that evening he met a girl at the park who he was comforted by, he said he had been crying about this whole break thing and he told her. He also said nothing happend, but he had feelings for her. He never saw her again and it wasn’t like he got her number, he took the relationship advice and stuck with me. But knowing in the past what he’s done, I blew up and started to shatter into tears and tears and tears. I broke up with him. But of course being away from someone you love is hard, harder then hard. I ended up going back to him like a sick puppy and now I don’t know what to do. I feel you don’t fall for someone else if you have already fell in love with your partner. I’m so betrayed by him, I mean just hurt. The pain is killing me. I want to fix it though, I want this to be okay. I won’t be able to get over this quickly though, but I’m willing to try. Any tips or help?

You’re right, you won’t be able to get over this quickly. it will take time and effort on both sides. The pain will go away if you feel more confident that he is working on things and wanting to make things right. It gets harder if he refuses to acknowledge what happened or makes excuses. All you can do is try to control your anger and vent your feelings in the healthiest ways possible. Communicate, but try not to be revengeful or hateful. It may feel good at first, but will cause major problems later. If you need to talk it out, you can, but try to stick to your feelings and what is bothering you about the situation. Hopefully that will help both of you begin again and start building trust. If he is unwilling to work at this, your pain will become worse and you may end up wanting to walk away. I hope it works out.

I am in desperate need of your advice. So my current boyfriend and I started dating about 5 months ago. We actually started our relationship right after he got done with his Navy basic training. We had been friends before he left, but became much closer because I enlisted in the Army while he was gone so we had that common ground. About four months into the relationship, we planned for me to fly out to see him where he was training at and spend a week there. This was going to be our first time actually being able to be with each other and see if we had a connection or not. Two nights I was supposed to leave, a friend of mine (that I used to like) invited me to his place to hang out with him and his buddies. With a combination of poor judgement, lack of intimacy for many months and being very drunk, I ended up sleeping with him. I felt so terrible after and wanted to tell my boyfriend. I didn’t however, because I thought if we don’t have a connection then we could just break up and I won’t completely break his heart. I realize now this was a crappy thing to do, I just didn’t want to hurt him. Needless to say we had an amazing connection and now I don’t know what to do. He keeps telling me how amazing of a girl friend I have been, how much he trusts me and I feel like absolute crap. I know I should tell him the truth, I just am so scared of really hurting him, ruining his faith in having a good relationship ( a girlfriend before hand had been cheating on him for most of thier relationship), and life is hard enough in the military I feel terrible making it even more difficult. He says he loves me and wants to marry me someday. I don’t know what to do. He has treated me better then any guy ever has before and is such an amazing guy. I was thinking if I do tell him, and he doesn’t want to break up with me can we still have a good relationship? With both of us being in the military after this year we both wont see each other for years most likely, and I feel like there is a good chance we might meet someone.

You do have a hard decision. I can’t tell you what you should do because everyone has different reasons for being honest or keeping things under wraps. It really is about what you can live with. Some people will say you can’t have a great relationship with secrets. Other people will say you’ll just be putting him through mental hell to clear your conscience. Both are true to a certain extent. Although I know people who don’t share everything in a relationship and it works for them. Others couldn’t live with holding certain things back. So dig deep inside yourself and decide at the end of the day what you can really live with. Remember, it is your decision. It doesn’t matter what other people would do. The other thing is, do you trust yourself not to make that same mistake again? That may help you in your decision. I hope this helps…long distance relationships are very hard. I hope it works out for you guys!

hi about two weeks ago i seen that my boyfriend added a girl on his facebook so i asked him how he new her he told me that he had met her and and her boyfriend. but then a couple days later my boyfriend forgot to sign out of facebook i ididnt realise that it was his facebook so i check the messages and see that the girl he add had left a message saying sorry about not calling him that day so i asked him why he was talking to her and he told me that they were talking about there relationships beacuse we have not been getting along for a while. so i sorta had a feeling that there was something else was going on so i went on to her profile and i noticed that she add a new friend and i just had this gut feeling that my bf had made a new facebook account to talk to her so anyways i ask my bf and he confessed to me that about two weeks ago he had had a one night stand with her we had a huge fight that night and he was drunk so i no he wasnt in his right mind but i and i can forgive him for that i just dont get why he still had to talk to her and even after i new he was talking to her he opened a new facebook account he says that he is really sorrry and that im his life and he cant bellive that he did this to me i ask him why he opened another facebook account and he said he dosent even no why he did he showed me all the messages and said that he will never do this to me again and we are going to try and fix this becuse we both love each other but i just no if can trust him not to do it again

It takes time to build back the trust. It is okay to feel the way you do now. However, I suggest letting things play out. See if he starts being honest again. If he doesn’t have any more contact with this girl and you don’t see any other suspicious behavior, then you may feel in time that you can trust him again. If you give him a chance and he continues to blow it with lies and deceit, then you’ll be more ready to walk away at that point. Just give yourself some time and see if he can prove that you can trust him again.

Me and my boyfriend have been together for almost 3 years now. Things started to get rough because he found out that I had a connection with my ex. My ex lives in another country now, the only communication that we have is through this social networking site. He tried to confront me regarding the issue but I decided to escape it by not telling him the truth. That made it worst. I asked him to give me another chance to make up for my mistake, and he did. I know how hard to regain someone’s trust especially if you really love that person. I’m really trying to be a better girlfriend for him. I’m doing the best I can to prove him that I’m worthy of his trust. He told that he’s not satisfied with my efforts. I really don’t know what to any more. What else can I do to make him feel assured that he’s the only one that I love? I gave him all my passwords. He has the full access to it. He even changed my passwords to every networking site that I have but I did not get mad, I tried to understand the reason why he did it. When he asks for my phone, I willingly give it to him because I know for a fact that I’m not hiding anything from him. I don’t know, I feel like he’s rejecting me and not accepting all my efforts. I don’t want to give up on us because I know we can do this but how could I make him be more open-minded and more forgiving? :(

I appreciate you sharing your story. Unfortunately you can’t make him do anything. It sounds like you are doing everything you can. Try to be confident about that and remind him that you are trying your best to earn back his trust. Ask him if there is anything else you can do…sometimes it just takes some time. I don’t know what it is about the human brain wanting to make things even, but in some ways he may be making things hard for you because he still feels hurt or upset. Hopefully in time he realizes he doesn’t need to hold this against you and things become more normal again in your relationship. Try to be patient, that is about all you can do at this point. Hang in there…

Hi.
My now-boyfriend had been trying to get me to go out with him for like the past 2 years. We were really close friends, and I didn’t see him as more for ages. But one day, I said yes. He’d grown taller, was more mature and handsome, and we were so close. It was amazing for about a month.
But he had a family friend, a girl, who he’s been really close to for like 5 years. He’d mentioned her before and I never thought… Apparently they used to kiss occasionally in the past, and it ‘never meant anything at all’ to him. But she’d suddenly seen him differently. She kissed him. (first kiss since he was with me) He kissed her back. She asked him if they were together. She didn’t know about me. He said he panicked and said yes ‘studidly’. He was distant for a few days. He’d asked all his friends for advice, said he didn’t want to hurt her and was terrified I’d break up with him. I hated being the last to know – through pictures on facebook, of them kissing. I’ve never cried so much. But he explained everything. Told her they weren’t together and told her about me.
Sent me flowers and teddies :’) Things were ok again. For a while. But she forgave him and he still sees her. As friends, they like meet up with his group of friends. Every time I hear her name I want to cry. I’m so scared. I don’t want him to see her. But I feel I can’t ask for that. He’s been on holiday for awhile now, with no wifi/phone connection. So we havent talked. The distance has let my mind wander. I can’t stop thinking about it. I just cry every so often. I want it to go away. Will it go away if I break up with him? I don’t want to. He’s all I want. It just hurts so much still. Sorry for the essay. :(

Thanks for sharing. I’m sorry to tell you that it won’t make you feel any better if you break up with him. If your heart is already attached, it will still be very painful no matter what you do. If you break up, you’ll still be thinking about him and wondering if he is with her. Find ways to build your trust up with him. If it becomes too unbearable, you can ask him to take a step back from his friendship with her. He should hopefully understand why it bothers you. It may be an ego boost for him that this other girl likes him, or he may actually just like her as a friend. If he would rather stay friends with her, make sure he is open about his contact with her. If he does something shady it most likely will show up on his FB page or somewhere else. It is hard to hide things with social media. If he breaks your trust again, then you have some choices to make. In the mean time, try to trust him and know that he obviously really still wants to be with you.

Thank you so much for the reply. You’re right, I would do that if I broke up with him. I just sometimes wish I’d never got into it, you know? It’s scary to care this much and I sometimes feel the urge to get out while I still can – while I still think I’d just about survive the break. He says he’s going to introduce me to her and his other friends now though, which is great. We had a talk. Thank you x

Hello, I found your article very interesting and insightful. I would however appreciate your advice and perspective. I started dating a girl 6 years ago however we never really connected from an emotional perspective, however i decided to stay with her irrespective. Approximately 6 Months ago i met a girl who i connected with from an emotional stand point completely. We were both crazy about each other. I told her about my Girlfriend and the situation, she also told me she has a fiancé who lives in another Country who she does not love since he cheated on her 3 times and she has never been able to forgive him, even though he Loves her. We eventually fell in Love, after spending a lot of time with each other and constantly being there for one another and building a strong emotional connection. However approximately 2 weeks ago whilst i was intoxicated, the 6 month girl who i love answered my phone and it was the 6 year girl, they talked for hours. The 6 year girl decided she was done with me, however i was planning to break things off with her anyway just wanted to do it in careful manner in order to not hurt her, however this did not happen. Regrettably i was lying to the girl i Love (6 Month Girl) and did not tell her how frequently i would talk or see the other girl, including taking her to the movies and family get togethers. The girl i Love was heart broken and decided she no longer wants to be with me. I basically begged and pleaded with her to give me another chance highlighting my intentions were clean and i wanted to break things off with the other girl carefully so as to hurt her as little as possible, however she does not believe me. Upon intense begging and pleading she has agreed to give me a chance however she says she may fall out of love with me and could cheat on me if her trust does not return. Additionally she has been showing signs of reduced care toward me and has mentioned her love for me has gone down. However when we are physically together with each other things are better and in some ways comparative to like before. Yesterday she informed me she intends to go back to the Country which her fiancé resides in order to break things off, however with the way things are going i find that hard to believe even though she tried to end things over Facebook with him. Further more i feel her fiancé wants to get her there after which he can persuade her to get married and since she is optimistic about us she may decide to go ahead with it.
I have realized my mistake and i am trying desperately for her to be with me in a similar fashion as before. I know that if she goes abroad the chances of her returning to me are slim. Your advice and thoughts would be deeply appreciated.
Thank You in Advance.

I wish I had a bunch of advice to give you. It is hard because there isn’t much you can do if she won’t give you a chance. If she is willing to stay in a relationship with her, then just to continue to prove to her over time how dedicated you are to her. You can’t bring her trust back if she is unwilling. You also have to be able to trust her. If you can’t, then there will be problems as well. Hopefully she will fall back in love with you, but the frustrating thing is that you can’t control that. Just be yourself and hopefully she’ll realize why she fell for you in the first place. Also, realize that if she wants to be with you, she won’t be with anyone else. If she chooses to cheat and you find out about it, then decide what you want to do. However, don’t borrow trouble if you don’t know for sure she is doing anything wrong. Hopefully this is helpful to you. It just sucks there isn’t a lot more you can do than to voice how you feel and back that up with actions. Good luck!

Hi Becca,
I’ve been reading these comments and i find the advice you give amazing, personal, and noteworthy. I am currently going through a relationship debacle within my life too. I do hope that you can give me some insight. I have been dating my boyfriend for a little longer than a year now. I caught him sexting one of his ex’s / long time friends (Chris) back in march of this year. A relationship with Chris previously described by my boyfriend as “we talk every now and then, see eachother every couple months.” This crushed me and was basically the root, amongst other things, to breaking up in June. After about three weeks and him and I coming to a compromise about our issues, he telling me that he is willing to do anything to be with me, about the full disclosure of Chris (which i had not fully forgiven him for), and being 100% honest and open about everything, we got back together. The first three weeks were fine. He was texting Chris off an on still, which i had to endure because i would never want to tell him that he could not talk to someone. Occasionally looking at these and finding nothing alarming. Coming closer to the present, I get a gut feeling that there is something going on between him and Chris. Chris had offered to get my boyfriends windows tinted for his birthday (roughly a $200 gift, which seems a bit much) a couple weeks back and chris and my boyfriend had been texting back and forth to set this up. I ask him if he would be okay with him and i going through his and Chris’ text together because i was feeling a little uneasy about the situation, his response, “no.” Flat out, no. So something that was supposed to be healthy for our relationship had instantly been turned negative and it went from “can we go through your texts”, to “i need to see your texts.” Through looking at these with him there were talks of (from my boyfriend to chris) “I dont have any expectations of any extra ‘perks’, I know you are seeing a new guy you really like and i respect that”, texts from my boyfriend to Chris on a semi-nightly basis “night babe”, and minor other lies which had been discover about prior events over the past few weeks involving Chris. At this I was extremely angry, slept on it and was still very much so convinced that this is NOT okay and I will not take it. Definitely a ‘fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me’ scenarios. I broke up with him; deleted his number, defriended his facebook, ect. Now nearly a week later, he has contacted me saying that he is willing to do anything to be with me, “if i never talk to or see chris again, what would you say” “if i never did anything like that again, was completely open with my phone, was never angry about you going through it; what would happen?” I love this man VERY much, in my eyes, he is my first love. I honestly wish i could have what we had back, but i can not come up with anything that he could possibly do to rebuild that trust. Even if i did accept his request of never seeing or speaking to chris again, i dont know how i could not always worry. I feel so angry, confused, cheated, exhausted, and hurt. It is very hard hearing from the man that you love that he is willing to do anything to get back together with me and for me to say that there is nothing he can do. This is where i need advice. I want him in my life because of the mere fact that i love him and can see a huge potential for our relationship, however I have been down this road before, a few short months ago. It is very difficult because love makes you forgive things and push things aside that the average onlooker would never deem appropriate or acceptable in ANY relationship, but is this healthy? Can he change his ways, would i trust him even if he did? How do i regain my trust for him? If you can give me any advice, insight, or commentary, it would be GREATLY appreciated.

If you still love him it wouldn’t be a mistake to give him another chance with the condition that his relationship with Chris is ended. It is obviously unhealthy and no other girlfriend would put up with it either. People have to have boundaries with the opposite sex if they are in a relationship. You have to make sacrifices. If he wants to be with you, he will have to sacrifice his friend Chris. Life isn’t fair, but we all have to deal with it. You won’t be able to trust him for awhile. He would have to be willing to be open with you. If he can prove himself over time you will start to relax. If he messes up, then you do what you have to do at that point. You won’t be an idiot to try and see if he can make things up to you. Plus, realistically you won’t be able to walk away if you’re thinking “What if??” I hope it works out and give yourself some time. Let him know it won’t be easy to repair your relationship and see if he is willing to put in the work. Trust me, actions speak louder than words and at this point you need to pay attention to his actions. He needs to know this and be willing to show you that you can trust him again. Good luck!

I would like to hear what your thoughts are on my sittuation, I was with my BF for 4yrs, (he cheated on me a few times with his EX and many other girls and this caused major problems in our relationship) he left town for a lil over a year and i decided that because i could not trust him we should not be together. When he came back he called me and we got together …Long story short I got pregnant by him and he decided that he wanted to be single i had no choice but to agree, when i was 5months pregnant he told me that he had recently gotten his EX pregnant too. Now he is going to be in jail for 3 years because of something that she told the police He was arrested while i was pregnant so he missed the birth of his son and he is going to miss the first three years of his life. Now he wants to be with me, he says he wants “our family”…
Im having a hard time determining whether or not he is being sincere or if he is saying this because of his circumstances, I have told him countless times that i don’t believe this relationship is going to work because of the fact that his EX (the one who caused serious problems in our relationship in the past) is now going to be part of his life forever. Part of me feels like despite his cheating we had a pretty good relationship and I do love him. I feel like i should give him a chance because he is my sons father and i don’t want a split up family, but on the other hand i feel like my heart may be making me think that the relationship was good but in all actuality it wasn’t all that great,
i honestly don’t believe that the relationship will be a success because of everything he has done to sabotage it, i think that we will have constant conflict because my trust in him is so broken and i really don’t see how i can rebuild it if he is having a child with someone who has been a problem for so long

You are in a very complicated situation. It sounds like your head is telling you one thing (it won’t work) and your heart is telling you another (wanting a family). Since it sounds like he will be in jail for awhile, you have some time to think. However, it sounds like he has a lot going on even when he’ll be out of jail with another child and he may not be able to devote the time you’d want him to. It doesn’t sound like your heart is ready to let him go despite all the problems. Unfortunately, the heart usually wins in these situations. If you want to take the time to give him a chance, it won’t really hurt. It is never too late to move on. In the meantime, focus on your son and in time it will be clear whether this guy will be a full time dad and boyfriend to you or not. Hope you and your son have a great bond no matter what happens.

My boyfriend of a year recently cheated on me. In the past, he has cheated on every girl he’s ever dated. He’s always ended up leaving his curent girlfriend for the girl he cheated with thinking that would bring him happiness again. But this time, it was different. he was happy after it and he regrets it. But now, he says that he needs time apart from me to clear his head. He has told me he doesn’t want to go back into our relationship without being 100% sure that he’s not going to hurt me again. He says that he knows he wants to be with me but that he really needs this time. I’m trying to be strong through all of this but I’m struggling. He’s told all his friends that he’s single now but not explained that we’re working things out. He’s hanging out with girls that he’s had things with in the past, and while they are in his immediate group of friends, I still find it hard to believe that old feelings aren’t going to come back. I’m very insecure and this just makes it so much harder. Any advice? I want to fix things. I love him. I’ve tried ending things for good and saying that I don’t want to fix things anymore, that I just want to be by myself, but I always end up regretting it and going back and saying I still want to try after this break is over. Help me!

It’s hard to walk away when you still have feelings for someone. However, it sounds like he is taking control over your relationship status. You may just have to go with the flow if you still want to be with him. If he ends up hurting you too much, you’ll know because it will be easier to walk away. Hang in there and hopefully he decides what he really wants soon so you won’t be left hanging too long.

He came over the other night and told me everything about what happened between them. He told me that he sat the girl down and said that nothing will ever happen between them because he’s in love with me and only wants to be with me. But even that I question because of the trust issues we have now. He has a hard time hurting people so I don’t want to fall for these lines when maybe he’s talking to other girls too.

Unfortunately only time will tell if he is going to truly commit to you or not. It is hard to trust what he says. Like I said before, he will either come around and prove his love to you, or he’ll continue to hurt you to the point that are able to walk away. Give him some time to see what happens, because it doesn’t sound like you are ready to give up yet. I hope it works out for you guys.

I was wondering.. My GF just cheated on me with her ex. It was going on all summer! After confronting her, She said it was purely physical. Is there anything to back this up? Is it possible for women to separate the emotions of sex and look at it like a cheating male would?

I’m sorry I didn’t see your comment sooner, it was hiding in my spam folder. First of all, sorry that you were cheated on. Second of all, if it was going on all summer, it would be hard for me to believe it was just physical for either a male or female. That is a lot of time to be spending with someone and not get somewhat attached. You know your girlfriend better than I do. It is possible to build back trust, even if was more than physical. If she has cut off all contact with this person and is willing to be open with you, you may find that you can repair the relationship. Figure out why she stepped out in the first place. Was there something she was going through or something she was missing in the relationship? That may help you decide what to do. Good luck, I hope it works out. P.S. In general I would say some women are capable of having just a physical relationship, but for most women it is harder not to become attached emotionally, especially if it goes on over time. That is just my insight, I haven’t done an official study to know for sure what the percentages are.

My boyfriend broke up with me 5days ago. We have been together for over 5years and I betrayed him be cheating on him in the last month. Before this all happened I was madly in love with him and I still am. He was the only man I had eyes for and I allowed someone to step in an take his place. We met at college on the first day and have been inseparable ever since. And after I completed my B.S. degree in 2010 we moved in together. I started my masters and he finished his last semester. Everything wasn’t perfect, but we never left each others side. A little over a year later he decided to go back to school and I supported him all the way. He moved back in to his parents place and attended school in a different state though only 2.5hrs away. We didn’t get to see one another as much as we should have. Because he had a hard time finding a job at first I was the one who would always visit him, but I hated going to his parents house and I let it be know every time i was there. Here is where everything really got bad. I had a car accident and because I felt he had no money anyway. I didn’t believe he would be able to come take care of me. That night he and I had a fight. One of my male friends came over to make sure I was ok and I ignored my bf. My friend ended up kissing me and touching me, but I didn’t reciprocate anything and he stopped because he saw I was uncomfortable. The next day I received a text from my bf saying that he wanted to make things work. I felt so guilty, I told him I could not allow him to be with me because of what had happened. The day after I drove up to where my bf lives too talk and apologize to him in person. Then I found out that his dad who is very protective of him read the text i had sent the day before when he saw him break down crying. He snatched the phone from him and read my message. My bf forgave me but didn’t ask me back out. He also didn’t allow me to drive back that night because he saw that i was upset. I went to his house knowing that everybody knew. My pictures were off the fridge and it was so uncomfortable. I was patient and waited for him to ask me out again. Three weeks later he did. However even though I knew he really wanted to be with me we ended up spending most of that weekend hanging out with his friends. When he left I told him that I didn’t appreciate what he did asking me back out and then choosing to spend time with his friends when we hardly get to see one another. I called my friend to vent to him. Things happened again, and my friend lost his virginity to me. We continued to mess around until this time I got caught. My bf knows this guy and knows he was a virgin. He hates me now and I hate that I didn’t give him a chance to fix things between us that bothered me because I know that he would have. I can’t believe I allowed our relationship to end like this. I love him with all my heart and I feel so broken and it hurts me even more to know he feels worst. He told me things will never work between us and he will never trust me again, that we can never be friends. I don’t think I can live with myself knowing that I hurt him so badly I just want the chance to make it right. He hates me, he’s so angry. He told me to leave him alone if I love him. I just need some advise.

Cheating is a hard mistake to forgive yourself or someone else for. I’m sorry you had to learn this the hard way cause it sounds like you’re going through a lot of pain. At this point it the only thing you can do is listen to your boyfriend and give him some space. You can let him know you still want to work things out, but will respect his wishes to leave him alone. That way he knows your open to reconnecting, but you won’t make him more mad by chasing him when he feels so upset. It is hard to feel so helpless in a situation like this. However, right now, there isn’t a lot you can do. Cry, talk to friends, do what you can to take care of yourself. You can only go forward and learn from this. I hope in time his anger will fade and he’ll give you the chance to earn back his trust.

My boyfriend kissed a girl he worked with while drunk after work one night. He fulled admitted to it, and told me about it.
He said he’s been good friends with her for a long time, and that after they kissed, they talked about ‘possibly’ being together ( she has a boyfriend too!) but they realized that was a ‘bad idea’…. (she was also leaving for college far away)
He told me all of this, and he said he ‘wasn’t sure what he wanted’……and he wasn’t sure he wanted to be with me for the rest of his life… he was crying pretty bad, and he’s been so stressed from working two jobs…..
Later that night, we talked some more and he explained that he didn’t mean anything that he said about not wanting to be with me, and that he was making a huge mistake if he were to leave me. He wanted to work things out and apologized and told me how much he really loved me and how he didn’t realize it, until he almost lost me.
I asked about his feelings for the girl–he said it was just a stupid crush and the feelings would go away….. that he wouldn’t talk to her anymore.
She did end up texting him ( i was using his phone at the time), it just said “hi’, and he deleted it right in front of me, and i asked what if she texts again, he said he would just ignore her…..

I really believe that he wouldn’t do anything like this again, I think that it was a good thing that he came out and TOLD me everything on his own… which says a lot to me.

Its just now, trying to build trust back….. I find myself so much more sensitive… the little things i look at…and over analyze…. like he didn’t want to have sex last night… omg, wtf?! He did want to snuggle and cuddle with me though…. he said he was just crabby.

I just feel so paranoid and sensitive now….. should I tell him this, or is it something I need to deal with?
Any other advice would be great too….

It is normal to feel a little insecure after finding out your boyfriend kissed someone else. I would definitely let him know your mixed emotions. He should understand and hopefully continue to work back your trust in him and in his commitment to the relationship. It does take time to not analyze every little thing he does. Try not to take things personally, and try to communicate with him the best way you can about how this is affecting you without using guilt trips. It is good to be honest, but watch your tone of voice and how you say things so you don’t sound like you are accusing him of anything, but just trying to help him see things from your perspective. Communication is hard, so be patient when there are misunderstandings. Hopefully in time you will feel less paranoid, but it will take some time to feel confident in your relationship again.

Hi My name is “Thomson” just want to share my experience with the world on how i got my love back and saved my marriage… I was married for 3years with 2kids and we lived happily until things started getting ugly and we had fights and arguments almost every time… it got worse at a point that she filed for divorce… I tried my best to make her change her mind & stay with me cause i loved her with all my heart and didn’t want to loose her but everything just didn’t work out… she moved out of the house and still went ahead to file for divorce… I pleaded and tried everything but still nothing worked. The breakthrough came when someone introduced me to this wonderful, great spell caster TEMPLE OF LIVE who eventually helped me out… I have never been a fan of things like this but just decided to try reluctantly cause I was desperate and left with no choice… He did special prayers and used roots and herbs… Within 7 days she called me and was sorry for all the emotional trauma she had cost me, moved back to the house and we continue to live happily, the kids are happy too and we are expecting our third child… I have introduced him to a lot of couples with problems across the world and they have had good news… Just thought I should share my experience cause I strongly believe someone out there need’s it… You can email him templeoflive@gmail.com

Thanks for sharing your experience. I don’t know if it is for everybody, but it is good to give the information to those who may want to try it. Although, I’m not sure if it will help resolve the pain of infidelity, but I guess if people are interested, they can look into it themselves. Thanks.

Thanks for writing this. After my boyfriend cheated on me I thought it was the end of the world. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to tell friends or family that this happened to me because I thought it would affect me in a negative way. I did decide to give him second chance because I do love him very much. My situation at the time wasn’t really a typical one. He was heavily under the influence at the time and we hadn’t seen each other in a while due to the fact that I was immobilized because of a car accident. I eventually healed and we got to see one another again except something was different. He was more secretive and like you said guarded his phone like fort knox lol. One day while he was asleep I went through his phone and found some messages. Messages that were waaaaay too friendly. I confronted him about it and he told me that he had cheated a couple of weeks prior to us reuniting. I cried…he cried, and now we’re doing our best to rebuild our relationship and trust. During my emotional rage I came across this article and used it to better my relationship with my guy. Now we are pretty happy even though he is on probation for his actions in cheating as well as his drug use. Thanks so much for the help :)

Adriana, Thanks for your comment. I’m glad this post was helpful to you. So many people go through this issue unfortunately. I’m glad the two of you are working it out. The best of luck to your future!

I’ve been with my boyfriend almost 3yrs now. Last October I found new condoms deep in his closet which we don’t use(I snooped around to find because I suspected that he was not honest with me). I didn’t tell him I found it until later that week when i noticed one missing, I spoke to him about it and threatened to leave..he denied every thing and begged me to stay. Shortly after I found out I was pregnant and in January found out he cheated on me with a girl he met at a bar the Month before. I was devastated..couldn’t eat or sleep but never left because I was experiencing great depression and had a difficult timetdeciding to keep the baby or not (I kept her). I setup couples counseling he went once but did not participare and refused to go again. while pregnant various girls would call his phone late at night and I would wake him to answer and tell them its inappropriate for them to call late hours and would not. I messages at least two girls and broke into his phone and contacted others to make them aware that I am his girlfriend and pregnant. They all knew about me but not that I was pregnant and claimed to be friends even though he told me he had sexual relations with them in the past. I had the baby and still feel very uncomfortable..he hides his phone continues to have it on lock and puts it on silent when he’s around me which makes me think he’s still hiding. He is be eery defensive when I ask to see his phone and I Watch him delete messages when he thinks I’m not looking. I can’t go through this anymore, I constantly threaten to leave but don’t because I want so badly for us to work it out primarily for the sake of my baby. On top of this he does not help,me financially. I’m torn and need help making a decision. Is it worth stocking around? Did I mention he still goes out on the weekend for up to 10hrs at a time?…I don’t know where he is or what he’s doing which increases my insecurity. He claims that he needs time with his friends after a busy work week and having to deal with tension between him and I.e. This is all killing me…

It is really hard to be in your position. You are thinking not only for yourself, but your child. Unfortunately it sounds like your boyfriend is only thinking of himself. I’ve said this before. You can’t leave before you are really ready. You may want to because logic says he isn’t treating you well, however your emotions will override that logic and find ways to stay. The only thing that will help is if he decides to open up and change. Then your pain will lessen. But you don’t have control of that. If he continues the way he is, then he’ll eventually put you in enough pain that you’ll take your baby and be able to move on. Some guys grow up, some don’t. It is okay to wait and see what happens, cause until it’s more painful to stay than to go, you’ll probably make the choice to stay and try to work it out. I hope he grows up for both you and your baby’s sake. Good luck.

Thanks for your response i greatly appreciate you. Is there anything I can do to show that I am serious about leaving if he doesn’t make a change?…something that will cause him to act in me and the Babys favor?

If you leave, you should leave for yourself, not because you want him to respond in a certain way. Decide to do what is best for you and the baby when you are ready to leave and let him know. You can also let him know you hope for him to still be involved with your baby’s life, but for your own emotional health you are going to move on. This is very hard to do, which is why you have to really wait until your ready. If you try to manipulate him into doing something, he may call your bluff. Don’t worry, you’ll know what to do if that time ever comes that you really need to leave. Also, don’t be afraid to ask other friends and family for help.

My ex [of 4 years] and I broke up earlier this year after he moved cross country. I wasn’t sure of what I wanted, and I had cheated on him in the past [which I know I would never ever do again]. So, I decided it was best to decide what I wanted without hurting him. I ended up deciding after a bit of time that I wanted him, and when I was ready to pursue the relationship, he wasn’t. He thought he wanted to be with me back in July, but he ended up telling me last month that he thought he was ready for a relationship, but that he isn’t ready to be with me yet. He said the reasoning being that if we reconciled now, it wouldn’t last beyond a few weeks, and he’d release all of his anger out on me over tiny issues, because those feelings of hurt are still there. I’ve noticed that if I ask him certain questions, he flies off the handle, and becomes hostile with me. However, I asked him what he wanted, and he said time. He’s noticed that I’ve changed significantly over the past 8 months, and believes that our relationship would work once he’s had the time to heal and think things through. He said he wants to wipe the slate clean in terms of our relationship, without any doubts, in order for us to move on. And, that’s exactly what I want for us, too.

I became a bit upset a few weeks ago, and said that I have to walk away [out of emotional distress, really]. He had tears in his eyes, gave me a speech, and later on that night ended up bawling his eyes out saying he was scared and didn’t want to lose me. He also mentioned that he’s afraid that he’s pushing this too far, and I’ll have broken by the time he’s ready. I know he needs to heal, but is there a good chance he’ll be back?

It is hard to know. Fear of being hurt again or taken for a fool can keep people from giving someone a second chance. Only time will tell if he will really be able to start over with you. When people say “wipe the slate clean” I don’t think they realize that it isn’t really realistic. A person can’t forget, they can only forgive and not let the negative memories cause them to feel so much anger and distress. It takes time for the person to see a change in the other person to build back their trust, which can fight back the fear and bad memories. However, some people are unwilling to let go or take a chance even with time.

Let’s hope that he is someone who can try to give you a chance to rebuild positive memories that help ease the pain of the negative ones. That is also why time helps. Over time, the positive memories build up if you don’t cheat again so that the cheating from the past becomes more distant over time. Again, they don’t forget, but your recent history will speak louder than the ancient past, if he will allow you get there. If he is asking for time, then give it to him and hope that he will have the courage to give you a chance to build those positive memories sometime soon. You do have a chance, let’s hope its a good one!!

Thanks so much for your response. I really appreciate it. Yes, I also hope that time will allow him to see past the bad memories, and give us a chance to rebuild positive memories instead. I was actually going to ask him if starting over with a clean slate was really possible given the fact that we don’t ever forget. However, I did ask him if he felt confident in being able to let the past go, and start over. He said that he does feel confident, and he wouldn’t be considering it otherwise. Additionally, one of the evenings I saw him, I said that I just wanted to give him a chance. He said “I am” So, I don’t truly know what that means.

The fact that I’ve changed so drastically over the past year has really helped my case, honestly. He told me that there’s no reason why he wouldn’t want to be with who I am now, and that if he had just met me now it’d be a completely different story. But, he said he wants to believe just as strongly as I do, that the relationship would be better, and work out. He said he’ll think of the relationship, and positive memories come to mind. However, when attempting to reconcile, the doubts flood in. And, that the only thing that’ll change that is time.

Lastly, he told me that he had been supporting [emotionally, physically, etc.] the relationship for 4 years, and that it takes a while to come back from that. And then said we’d be laughing about this on the beach in a year.

Becca,
first of all i was the one who wronged my gf first. I have not been the best of boyfriends.My gf was madly in love and wanted to be with me for the rest of her life but i wasn’t really sure what i really wanted with her but one thing i knew was that i will never leave her because i get her pregnant and we had an abortion (which was the worst mistake we made in our lives). We lived and studied in Canada for a year until we both went back to our countries. I knew things were going to be tough for me because i wasn’t good at long distance relationships however i was willing to do my best to keep the relationship. At first we were really cool and then time went by and i started feeling the strain but she will always call me and want to spend time talking to me. I then met some girl and started doing stuff with her (i swear it was purely physical and nothing emotional) this went on for 6months. Then my gf found out about this girl through my emails ( i was taliking to a friend about her ). She asked me and i denied and lied there was anything going on because i knew she would be devastated and i was gonna lose her if i accepted. This was the start of our misery,she got so suspicious and insecure , calling me everytime to know where i was who i was with and what i was doing. This really stressed me out and i started being defensive and harsh towards her. She later found an email from my ex (purely friendship and there was nothing going on between us) and asked me if there was anything going between us .All this while i never knew she was spying on me , so when i realised she was checking my emails i got extremely disappointed and mad and said mean things to her and even hang up on her. We did not speak for sevral days until i rang her 2wks later. I was still pissed at her for looking into my emails and so kept arguing for a whole month until i finally told her that i loved her and wanted to be wif her . We resolved our issues and things worked out perfect for us until she told me 3wks ago that while we were having issues and arguing and me not calling her, she had sex ( 3 times) with her nephews brother-inlaw because she felt useless and that she knew i wanted to end the relationship and did not care about her and the other guy was there to make her feel loved and cared about. i was so shocked to the spine that she had cheated on me – i trusted her soo much but i know it was my fault the way i treated her. What really hurts is that the guy is close to the family and i am not sure how i can handle seeing him if i ever do. She broke down over the fone and said she was really sorry that she never intended to hurt me and that she was so sure that i did not want her anymore and she frustrated and looking back she doesn’t know how and why she even did that. And that she regrets so much what she did and its the worst mistake she ever made.She feels sooo guilty and wants to do anything to save our relationship but i know it was my fault too. Now i realise i love her to death and want to be with her but i feel soooo hurt by what she did ( i know i cheated on her too though she doesnt know). I really want to put this behind and move on,i really want to forgive her and work things out but sometimes i get flashbacks and its really tough for me plus we still live in dfnt countries and dnt get to see eachother often. I really want to be with her and i need advice on how to put this behind me . Do you think i should also tell her that i cheated on her too? Do you think we can work things out ? I want to be happy again with her now i realise i love her to bits and i feel soo bad for all the things i did to her – i dont want to be selfish and punish her for something i know i am also guilty of. Please help me i need your advice

Thanks for sharing your story. You are in a tough position for sure. It is hard to have a long distance relationship without trust. It is also hard to rebuild that trust because you can only hear her words and not see if her actions are following. How trust is rebuilt is usually through actions. It is hard to let go of your anger or fear if you constantly think she could be still lying to you. If you want to stay in the relationship, I would say try to give her a chance to prove to you in small ways that she is committed and you do the same. Maybe give each other your email passwords and try to be more open about things in conversation. I can’t tell you whether you should open up about your cheating…that is a hard call. You both definitely have an uphill battle in front of you to make this relationship work. If you do love her, write down the reasons why and also why you want to stay in the relationship. When you are feeling negative feelings, pull out that list and remind yourself why you want to continue to make it work. Try to stay positive and try to give her the benefit of the doubt, because you know yourself that if you could stop cheating, so could she. Good luck.

I’m having real big problems in my relationship at the moment. I’ve been with my boyfriend for just over a year but I found out a couple of months ago that he’d been ‘talking’ to another girl online (I consider that cheating because of the type of conversations, also he had a crush on her before we started dating.) We managed to sort a lot of this out ourselves for the most part. Just as I thought things were getting better I found out that he’d done exactly the same thing with another girl (ironically just a week before he told me about the first one.) He kept telling me that it didn’t mean anything and that he had no feelings for her but today he admitted that he really did like her at the time but that he has realized that he only wants me. I’m so confused and really hurt not to mention the fact that this has totally ruined my self-esteem. Sometimes I feel like I’m making a big deal out of nothing but hearing that he had feelings for her (he even asked her out on a date but they never went) just makes me feel terrible. He’s given me his password for his facebook and he deleted them both immediately. I don’t know what to do anymore. I really want to make things work with him but I’m not sure that I can. It seems that every time I start to trust him again something happens or he tells me something else about it that make me doubt everything all over again.

Thanks for sharing your story. It is really hard to trust again once you’ve been hurt. I think it is a good thing that he has opened up his FB to you. It is a risk to give him another chance, but if you still have feelings for him, it may be worth the risk to see if he really has decided he only wants to be with you. If he hurts you again, then you can make the choice to break up and move on. If you aren’t ready to move on yet, then do your best to believe in yourself and the relationship. It may be worth it.

Hi Becca, I need help. I been dating this guy for 8 years he has left me many times for other women- through the entire relationship he has had a drinking and gambling problem- the last time he left we stood apart for 2 years we recently got back together and things have been great. but he went through my phone and found numbers. they belonged to 2 men-just strictly associates- I love this man and have waited for this time to try and make it work- he has since stopped drinking and gambling but feels like I cheated on him because I had been in contact with these 2 men while we were trying to work it out. he said I make him feel worthless and he can not trust me because of my lying and has asked what are my consequences for talking to someone else- though not romantic. when things are good they are really good but the slightest thing and things go horribly wrong fast. before this he went through everything in my room and found nothing as there isnt anything to find..then he went through myphone and found 2 numbers so now im a liar and a cheater- he says he loves me and wants to spend the rest of his life with me – we make life plans together and then something comes up and we are back at square one. he has access to my phone computer…he has already gone through everything and when I say I m trying to build his trust he said aside from living day by day..what are you doing specifically to earn my trust and show me. But when I say give him access anytime to my phone computer etc that does not count in his book. he has been with alot of women and i do not bring it up but he is constantly bringign up what I did while we werent together and then he has a million questions about it. but if I do the same thing- he goes off and says he is tired of me letting people outside of our relationship mess with our lives. i dont know what I m suppose to do- ive seen a counselor and when I told him he said I need to see a counselor to find out why im so messed up and lie..and for couples counseling.

It sounds like you are in a very tough situation. Unfortunately you can try to reassure your boyfriend that you’re being honest, but in reality he is the only one who can reassure himself. Whatever you will say, he will tend to not believe. It is frustrating. If you love him, I suggest trying to patient and hopefully over time he will see that you are loyal and trustworthy. However, if he doesn’t eventually come around, he will kill whatever love you still have for him if he continues to accuse you of cheating. Trust is hard for a lot of people. Without trust though, you don’t have much. I hope he will go to couples counseling with you. It may be very helpful. I think you’re doing all you can, just try to be patient and hope time will help the situation. Good luck!!

Well it’s a long story I’m not totially sure how to take it all in. Here it goes I met my gf 8 yrs ago she had a child from another relationship I took him on as my own things were great for 1 year then she lost her job and went to her ex for advice and she cheated twice over a two week period I caught her throw e mails but didn’t have proff she lied flat out so I shout my self down she can’t hurt me if I don’t care then after that we had our 1st kid then about three yrs later she was goin out all the time and I new something was up so I call an escort and had sexy with her not long after that she comes to me and tell me she pregnant still lying I’m sure it was mine as her 1 night stand was sniped but couldn’t take the chance so we had an aborttion after that she comes to me and tells me she has an std so I go get tested and sure enough I got it to ohhh and by the way I used protection. She still never told me what happend I shout down even more. Then we had our next kid 3 kids now. I was having cyber sex with girls all the time. Then we bought a house things were going not bad then I went to an escort again has oral sex with her. Right after that I caught her in the beginning of an affair no sex. We both told 1 and other everything it really is true love I’m sure of it we r like best friends e just messed it all up from the beginning what do we do

I wish I had better advice to give you…it sounds like your relationship has been through a lot. If you do truly love each other, then open up the communication and both of you may have to learn to sacrifice in order to regain trust. Don’t take advantage of each other, make a commitment to be loyal, faithful, and committed to each other. However, some hurts are very hard to get past. I hope you guys are able to heal and have a healthy relationship. Give yourselves some time and put the energy into it to make things better. I wish you luck.

Hi my names tom I’ve been with my girlfriend for nearly a year now. Were both at different universities so dont see each other that often But we have a great relationship. I love her and want to be with her the rest of my life. Unfortunately being at uni i go out quite a lot and drunkenly cheated on my gf by kissing a girl. I told her the next day and with time we managed to get back to the way we were and she forgave me. this was 6 months ago. A couple of weeks ago she told me she was pregnant we both agreed that unfortunately it wasnt the right time With us both being at uni. She had the abortion 2 days before my 21st birthday. It was a hard time for us both but we were there for each other. On my birthday night i had a house party and was paraletic and my girl best mate said that we were kissing whilst my gf was in the next room I dont remember this at all but the girl has told me she fancied me i dont know if she is telling lies just 2 split me and my gf up.. I feel like i dont deserve my gf but she means everything to me. I didnt tell her because i was scared i didnt wanna lose her over something i dont remember. She found out a few days later and now she doesnt know if she can be with me. I know i deserve everything i get but knowing ive hurt her kills me. Im ashamed of myself. These stupid moments only occur when im drunk so have already signed up for binge drinkin counselling to prove 2 her that i can change. Just wondering if anyone has any advice on how i can prove 2 her that i do love her and that ill stop drinking excessively? I wudnt appreciate any hurtful comments i know im an idiot. Thanks.

First, you’re not an idiot. You are just learning some things the hard way like 98% of us out there. The only way to prove to your girlfriend that you mean what you say is over time showing her through your actions. She hopefully will give you that time to prove both to her and to yourself that you can drink responsibly and not make the same mistakes. I hope it works out for you guys. Live and learn and make changes along the way as necessary. Unfortunately some mistakes are longer lasting and have more consequences. Also, remember that her emotions may be out of whack because of the abortion, so try to be understanding if she is more emotional than normal. Take care and thanks for your comment.

becca I need help!
-Hi my name is Sam and me and my ex-boyfriend, i guess you can say, recently just broke-up because I drunkenly cheated on him with a guy friend of mine about 4 months ago. We didn’t have sex but i know what I did was still wrong, selfish and no one deserves it to be done to them. Once my boyfriend found out we ended things, but a day later he wanted me back in his life but didn’t want to have the title cause he didn’t know if he could ever trust me again. From then on we hung out everyday, still made love, had a relationship, but he could never say that we were officially together, which made me very insecure. That went on for a good 2 months and now just recently he decided that he doesn’t think we should talk for awhile to figure out what he wants. I feel sadness, guilt and remorse everyday for what I did and tried everyday really hard to prove to him that he is the one for me and that I would do anything for him.
I’m confused on if I am just supposed to wait out even longer for him or if I’m just supposed to move on. I’ve already waited 2 months and in those 2 months i was tortured with my remorseful thoughts, enough to where at anytime I could just break down and cry.
Now we don’t talk and I hear from mutual friends that he still loves me as much as I love him. I have repeatedly said sorry, told him it meant nothing but he still can’t fully commit to me again. Is there anything else that I can really say or do anymore? or should I just move on?
–thank you for your reply!!!

I can appreciate your frustration and your remorse over your situation. It is hard to know what to do. Let me just warn you that your heart will decide whether you will be able to move on yet or not, not your head. Your head doesn’t want to waste time or continue to feel hurt. Your heart also doesn’t want to hurt, but won’t be able to help itself for a little while. You have been honest about your mistake and have been making a good effort to make it up to your ex. Now it is up to him to decide if he can move forward with you or not.

In the mean time, try not to beat yourself up. Learn from your mistake whether your ex comes back or not. Remember that a few minutes can wreck months and years of trust. It happened, you can’t change it, but you can make sure you don’t go down that road again. Feel confident about that and know that you’re still a good person who can be trusted. Work on your confidence while you are waiting to see what your ex is going to do. It will help you either way. If he doesn’t come back, eventually you will feel confident, secure and less hurt, which makes it easier to attract another great guy. If your ex comes back, you won’t need his reassurance that you’re good enough if you already believe it yourself. Take this time for yourself and you’ll either be ready for your ex to come back or for a new adventure.

Instead of using the words, “moving on”, I suggest you use the words, “taking care of me time”. Hopefully at the end of that time you’ll be happy single, with your ex, or in a new relationship. Good luck!

I’ve wrote on this before .. Me & my bf got back together tried things after he thought I cheated and since there was no trust he was not putting all the effort in that he used to before our big breakup. We love each other but he can’t seem to get past it. He doesn’t believe that I didn’t cheat & he holds it against me & acts like this different person. It causes me to get upset and mad and of course over analyze things that he does because he isn’t being himself. Once I do that he tells me I have a guilty conscience which isn’t true I just want him to believe me and put in the same effort that I do. We keep breaking up an getting back and there’s no trust. There is anger as well and it’s hard because ive made myself not trust him too even though I know he’d never cheat I just feel like since he’s so convinced I did he might spite me. I don’t know what to do to make us work because he is very hard headed and it’s like he believes what he wants. When we have good days they are amazing I think that’s why it is so hard but the fights kill us because we literally have this love hate relationship. We have been broken up for 2 months and he is saying now that it’s gonna be on his mind if I was with anyone in those two months so like I said more trust issues. I just really do not know what to do I’m so confused!

There isn’t much you can do. You can’t make him trust you or move forward. All you can do is be yourself and try to move forward. If he doesn’t come around, then eventually it will be too painful to even keep on trying. You’ll know when you just can’t take anymore. Love is hard and complicated. I wish I had a better answer, but you do have a choice to walk away. It just isn’t an easy choice. Good luck.

It is hard to talk to someone if they won’t listen. Maybe try to write your thoughts and feelings down in a letter instead. That may help. It is frustrating, but you can’t control the other person and make them listen or talk to you. Give them some time and in the meantime, really think through your relationship and remind yourself why this person is worth waiting for and making sacrifices for. If you don’t think this person is worth it, then you may not want to stay in the relationship. Good luck.

I want to say i appreciate you for doing this. You seem to respond to every comment, and I desperately need advice. My boyfriend and I have been together for three years. In March of ’12 he voluntarily told me that he had cheated on me twice six months before. It was a difficult time in our relationship and in his life. My parents were cheaters, and I know that if I wasn’t willing to forgive him I should just move on and not torture us both. After difficult weeks, I believed him when he said that he wouldn’t do anything to jeapordize our relationship again. Since then, he has done lots of little things that betray my trust. He sent e-mail to girls on craigslist who were looking for hook-ups. He has texted girls he met at a strip club. He has generally lied to me in little ways about things that had happened at concerts and such that I ended up hearing about anyway (nothing physical, but still deceitful). His most recent transgression was after I found out he had texted a stripper and deleted the messages, he told me a girl at work had thrown herself at him and he refused her advances (I had accused him of not being able to refuse female attentions). After he accused me about a month later of going through his phone (which I didn’t) I went through his phone. I found a conversation between he and a friend where he was yelling at the friend for telling this girl about the picture he had been sent. I flew off the handle and he told me he had texted her, she had sent him naked photos, they had kissed once or twice at work, and that was it. Now about a month later, he voluntarily tells me that he kissed one of our mutual friends while I was passed out (intoxicated). I feel like by forgiving him again, I’m asking for it. While he hasn’t had sex with another woman (that I know about) I feel like he has had more than enough oppurtunities to prove to me that he is commited to me, and he keeps doing stupid s*** to mess it up. I don’t think I want to trust him again, even though I still love him very very much. Am I an idiot?

No, Katie, you are not an idiot. You are someone who cares about someone else a lot. However, your boyfriend does seem like he is having a hard time committing. This is hard, because it is very easy to think he doesn’t care about you or that you aren’t good enough in some way. Most likely he either craves the attention he gets from others even though he cares about you, or he just isn’t able to settle down for some reason even though he isn’t willing to break up with you either. Some people have fears they don’t even recognize or are able to admit. When it comes to relationships, it makes them do stupid stuff. He seems to want to be with you, but can’t seem to say no to outside attention. This will continue to hurt you enough that at some point you’ll call it quits if his behavior doesn’t change. I’m not saying he’s a bad person, but he may not really be ready for a long term monogamous relationship at this point. In this case, my theory is that is really isn’t about you. It is about him…it just sucks that it is happening to you. Hang in there…there are reasons to love this guy obviously, but to be honest, you do deserve to be treated a lot better. It won’t be an easy decision to stay or go, all I know is that eventually if things don’t get better, you will be strong enough to go. Good luck and thanks for reading.

Hi Becca, Im just a beginner in this and I saw this website :D. Recently, I feel like Im having trouble in my mind that i cant get rid of. Here is the story: me and my gf have been together for over 2 years now but before this year, there was a lot of stuff that happened. She loved me when she first saw me, i guess love at first sight and she always wanted to get my attention..At first, i really didnt want to hurt her cuz i consider myself as a bad guy and she looked sooo innocent and she is…as time went by, she loved me more than anything and she do all of this sweet things and care for me bt i always find something to argue or fight with her about small things..i wasnt patient for her..bt she was, she continued to love me still and always patient for me until last summer…we went to Chicago together and I;ve stayed with her and her sister for only 2 weeks while she will continue to stay until school starts again..When i left chicago, everything continued again..arguments and fights and then she met a mexican guy at her work place in Chicago…he was nice to her, cared about her, and loved her…and so she fell for him…so technically she cheated on me for him…I know it was my fault that i mistreated her so bad and that she found what she wanted from some other guy and she cant help it..They always hang out together and she would never text me..this problem lasted from summer till october…I suffered and went through a lot of pain and I’ve realized that I cant lose her again…i really love her and care about her now..bt the problem here is that i cant forget what she did to me..she spent soo much time with him and they even kissed several times..I mean, i get why she loves him bt why does she have to kiss him??…Idk if they had sex or not bt she isnt that type of person to have sex with some guy that she knew for only 2-4 weeks…eventually, that guy really backed off and kept his promise…now after 4 months, they never talked again…she wanted me to trust her and she knew that if she came back with me, I will not trust her anymore…bt i try to think positive bt her actions just remind me of him and her….she did soo many sweet things for him and now, she love me while she was with him and she said she love me more than anything and everything…bt i dont see it in her actions…i feel like im not compared to him and what she did for him…please Becca, i hope you could give me an advice how to stop thinking about what has done cuz i know i made her become that way and made her do the things she would never do..right now, i sacrifice everything for her..even my school grades…thank you Becca…

Johnny, thanks for your story. It sucks that your brain can be your own worst enemy sometimes. It is so hard to trust and be confident in relationships. However, if you do love her, you want to try to focus on those things in your mind. Help remind yourself why you are putting yourself through all of this. Cause trust me, in time it will get easier. If you are together another few years and nothing else has happened, you will be glad you pushed through this hard time. It isn’t easy, but you want to try to let go of the past unless she gives you reasons in the present to not trust her again. Good luck and don’t give up!!!

Hi Becca,
I was hoping maybe you could give me some advice, my story seems a bit different from every one else’s, but I hope you’ll understand.
I cheated on my boyfriend 3 times. Twice with his best friend, and once with a guy from my school. We have been together for over a year and a half, and all I want is to be with him.
The story goes like this:
One day his friend and I were texting and it led to texts that should not have been said while in a relationship, we eventually met up and it was a bit of a forceful situation when it came down to the physical stuff, but I look back now and think that I should have just gone with my instincts and not have met up with him. So, we continued to text after that, then it happened one last time, which was a bit more forceful because I just didn’t want to do it. But I did. I then stopped texting him and we said we would never speak of it.
Then, my relationship with my boyfriend began to get really bad, to where he never wanted to see me, told me not to come over on Christmas, and all of that. So, I started talking to this guy from my school, and that didn’t last very long at all, but the whole time I knew it was wrong. On Christmas Eve we hung out and we were sitting in my car and we kissed. I almost started crying in the middle of the kiss. He even asked me what was wrong. It just didn’t feel right. Just about less than I week later I told my boyfriend everything, about both guys. I told him about a month ago, and he is still bringing it up like it happened yesterday, is that normal? We have been doing ok and I have been extremely open, and I always tell him what I’m doing and where I’m going, he knows all of my passwords and I’m willing to show him whatever he wants to see. But it just seems like it’s getting worse and worse, and he seems to be investigating what happened still. I was just wondering if that’s what most people do. At the beginning, right after I told him, we were doing alright and just fine, and it’s about a month later now and it seems like it’s getting worse and worse and he is losing trust for me even more, although I still have told him that he can see anything he wants and I’m very open about everything. I’m just worried that things will keep getting worse, or will they start getting better? I truly am sorry and I do not want to lose him. This man is the love of my life, and I’ll literally do whatever it takes to keep him. Today he asked me how am I going to prove to him that I won’t do it again. And my answer was that I will show him every day that I won’t do it an that it will take time. But time just isn’t good enough proof for him.
I really don’t want to lose him, and I know I messed up bad!
Let me know your thoughts, thank you!

Carmen, it is very hard to win trust back. I’m glad you were able to come clean with the truth, but it will have a lasting impact. What is happening is that he is now wondering if he missed anything else. He is questioning all the things he thought he knew and wondering if there was anything else you didn’t tell him about. This is why it is getting worse not better…at least for the first few weeks or months. He has to sort through his feelings of hurt, anger and insecurity. It is hard to be patient during this time, but if you love him, then that is what you have to be. Everyone makes mistakes and he doesn’t get a free pass to control your relationship or mistrust you forever. At some point if he wants to stay with you he also has to work though his feelings and eventually trust you again. In the meantime, just hang in there. I wish I could say for sure it will work out, but sometimes it doesn’t. It sounds like you may have had other problems (which led you down the road to cheating) before. Keep the lines of communication open. Relationships require a ton of sacrifice and fixing a relationship requires even more. It is worth it if you really love the person, but it definitely won’t be easy. I hope this helps…

Hi Becca,
I could really need some help right now. My story is similar to Carmen’s story but slightly different.
Before the start of my relationship, I met this guy who happen to be my current boyfriend’s close friend started flirting around with me and so i flirted back. I confessed to him but I got rejected because he told me it wouldn’t work out because of the long distance we have so i was upset about that. We never spoke again for a couple months until 2011 February. He started texting me and then my feelings for him came rushing back so i texted him back. But at that time I already started speaking to another guy (current boyfriend). A few months after, me and my boyfriend were dating. During that time I still had feelings for his close friend 8months later, at the beginning of 2012 we still texted each other and I felt really bad for doing this. I didn’t know why. I just still had feelings for him. On March 2012 I cheated on my boyfriend with another guy. Yet again another close friend of his. He started texting me first and I didn’t really like him at all but I was only being friendly with him. He kept texting me about his ex girlfriend and how they broke up and then he started asking personal questions which i am very open about. He sent me pictures of himself and asked if i could. I refused at first but i don’t know what i was thinking. I ended up sending a picture. On April 2012 my boyfriend found out about both guys he wasn’t happy about it. But we did made up but i knew he didn’t fully trust me. He asked if there were anything else or anyone else I said no. But i missed out one part. We’ve been very happy with each other after i cheated on him until yesterday he found out the missing part. I never told him about the texts from the first guy i met which is his close friend. We kept on texting each other while we were dating for a couple months.
Yesterday, we were on the bus making our way to the shopping mall, he asked if he could see my phone so i gave it to him. I saw him going through my old messages and I was fine with that until he saw the messages back in February 2012 while we were dating. As he was finished reading the messages, he let go of my hand and asked why i didn’t tell him. I was confused. I didn’t know what he was talking about until i thought about it deeply and i just started tearing up on the bus. I didn’t really want to speak to him about it in public so i stayed silent. He got off the bus and left me behind. I was so upset, i knew he was so heart broken. So i got off the next stop went back to his house because i knew that was where he was going to be. As I knocked on his door, he never expected me to come back I asked if we could talk. We spoke about why i didn’t tell him. The reason why i never told him about the texts was because i was afraid his close friend would post pictures online. I was very stubborn at the time and he told me to leave his house. I refused as i was crying my eyes out. He got annoyed at me and said i’m not making things any better. So i left. I checked his status he wrote “i regret wasting so much time on you” and “so you did have things to hide”. I feel like he’s already broken up with me. I know i should have told him everything. In fact i know i shouldn’t have done these things. I love him dearly, i really do. I just hate to see him upset. I feel like he hasn’t been happy with me. I don’t know what to do. It’s already been 24hours since it happened. Please give me your advice. Thank you

Your situation sounds complicated. I’m not really sure what to tell you. It is hard when you’ve made mistakes that hurt others. Sometimes you get another chance, but sometimes choices have consequences that can’t be undone. I hope he will be able to forgive you, but you will have to give him a lot of time. Continue to be open and hopefully if there isn’t anything else for him to find, then eventually he’ll be able to trust you again. If you love someone, you really have to stop and think about how your choices are going to affect them. Sometimes we don’t realize what we have until we are in jeopardy of losing it. I wish you luck and hopefully what you guys have will survive through it all.

this really helped me, but i would like to share my story…My girlfriend and i have been through a lot. 8th grade we dated for 3 months and i broke up with her for something stupid…it was really stupid, but then 3 weeks later she went to a new guy. dated him for 10 months. into their 3rd month i noticed he was using her for sex…or tring to. i told her she didnt believe me. Well after they broke up in their 10 month relationship i told her i still cared for her and appologized. We got back togehter and out of curiosity i asked how far her and this last guy got, and she said not very far. that they never had sex or even have tried. this guy is guy #1. then her and i dated for 6 months and she broke up with me. said she didnt feel it anymore. she went to this 18 year old (she is 16) and he had a girlfriend. she never dated him, but he has had 3 std’s and cheated on his girlfriend like once a week. She didnt want to believe it. I still loved her, and we had intercourse the last time we dated. I wanted to wait but i dont know what got into my head that i didnt. so she went with him for a month and she saw him kissing another girl at a wrestling meet so she cried back to me and i took her back, 3 days later she breaks up with me and again says she doesnt feel it anymore. She went back with this other guy known as guy #2. the 18 year old. for a good 2 weeks and came back to me. I was tring to date someone else but she got really jealous and came back to me, and me still really loving her i took her back, but in that 2 weeks we were apart i found out something from one of her friends, that she actually almost had sex with guy #1 (like really close) and she actually cheated on me with guy #2 and thats the night she broke up with me is when she cheated. then i felt horrible but still loved her and i thought i could work through it so i took her back. Then we dated for 4-5 months and she broke up with me again. said she didnt feel it again to go with a 19 year old guy who had 4 kids with 4 different girls. he is known as guy #3. My girlfriend said she wanted to be engaged to me and wanted a baby with me (we are both 16). She wanted to show me that she wanted a life with me so we did try for a baby and we were engaged. (i dont want any comments about how we werent ready) then yet she broke up with me. guy #3 obviously only wanted sex. she again didnt beleive it. They hung out while we were broken up for like 2 weeks and dated for a week later till her parents found out and made her break up with him, so me still loving her i take her back. i ask how far did you get, and she said he rubbed her privates. Well i forgot it till she started talking to guy #3 as a friend well since she cheated on me i was freakin out and pissed off cause i couldnt really trust her. Then after 3 months of again being engaged to her she broke up with me for a 15 year old (she and i are still 16) this is guy #4. she liked him and broke up with me because she said i was controling her. i didnt want her to be friends with guys # 2,3 or one of her friends because her friend always pisses my girlfriend off. Well she liked him he liked her and they never dated but it ended up with him leading her on so she comes back to me, i love her take her back, still hard to trust her by this time we are juniors in highschool im 17 shes 16, and we date she wants a baby again and to be engaged so i say fine, we date for 8 months and she dumps me again for a 17 year old guy #5. She dumps me saying i dont feel it anymore, and like him he likes her, he smokes and drinks a lot, so i tell her she doesnt believe me, i try to go to another girl she gets jealous and comes back to me, and we are dating now going on 3rd month engages and she might be pregnant (we are both 17 now) again i dont want comments on how were not ready but its still really hard to trust her because she sometimes get defencive about her phone, and stuff. Idk how to really trust her after all of that. Ive told her over and over again that she has to text me, if she gets busy tell me, but she still doesnt a lot of the time. like shes staying at a friends house for the night and i called her and texted her like 8 times and she doesnt answer phone or text me. What do i do? What do i tell her. Im still really scared.

It sucks for sure to not be able to control the situation. You are in a situation with someone and don’t have a lot of control. You can’t make her do anything she doesn’t want to do. You can ask, you can tell why certain things mean a lot to you, but you can make her respond or do things you need her to do. You have choices. They are hard, but if you aren’t getting what you want, then maybe you need to pull away emotionally. My best advice is to focus on what you can control and try to accept the things you can’t, otherwise you are going to drive yourself crazy. I wish you luck cause your situation is complicated and not an easy one to be in, but do remember, you have choices, they just might not be the ones you want to choose.

Hey Becca. I am so glad to have found this site…I have no one to talk to about my situation other than my boyfriend (who’s words are useless to me at the moment) and his roomate’s girlfriend..who is 21. yeah.. So, I met my boyfriend just before he deployed to Afghanistan. We spent every day of those two weeks together, and continued corresponding over emails and the occasional phone call..he came to visit me after he got back, and three other times after that..I lived in the far north and he lived 5 states away, so it wasnt a minor trip. I fell in love, and he said he loved me too. We talked on the phone for hours, which is really unusual for me, and I helped him out of quite a few financial rough spots..anyway, the last time he came to see me, I dropped everything and left with him. We’d had some fights and rough patches, and there was a gut feeling I had that he hadn’t always been honest with me..but I felt I was making the right decision, because I didn’t actually believe he had done anything that would hurt me. Well, a few weeks ago I could not sleep at all. We were at his brothers house and everyone was still sleeping, so I got on my bfs phone.. His fb was up, which was intriguing to me, because a few days before that I had found out that he’d been talking to an ex that I was uncomfortable with, and after I called him out for it he logged out of his fb account on the computer and left it that way. So curiosity came into play and I read through his messages, only to find out hes been flirting with basically all his ex’s the entirety of last year, to the point of writing some random one that he wished he had the “guts” to get back with her..I had been lied to for an entire year, and it felt like he stabbed me right through the heart. I couldnt bring myself to look at him the entire day; awkward, being at his brothers house. I finally confronted him with everything I knew on the drive home. He was very contrite, very ashamed, yada yada, HE even cried. I was willing to forgive it because of the talk we had and how he seemed to be transparent and finally honest, even though I had to drag the truth out of him. Well, after that, suddenly fb on his phone was logged out. This incited my ever present curiosity and I decided to have a look at his email. This is when i found that up until a few months ago he was on craigslist casual encounter ads and not only answering them, but sending pictures and video..and he had a dating profile and had been responding to things there too. I found out about an entirely different email that was apparently set up for this purpose. At this point he came outside and saw me with his phone, glanced at the screen, and then took it from me, and went back to sleep like nothing fking happened. When I get mad or hurt, I don’t say anything at all. I am not confrontational by nature and rarely even raise my voice..he knew he was in trouble for something, but I couldn’t even bring myself to speak to him. Finally he said something along the lines of “i cant stand this not talking..I know we really need to talk about this” What followed was basically him only admitting to what he knew i knew. He started it by saying “well i know i had an old dating profile, and i got spammed” and continued to lie from that point on, which made it even worse. I confronted him with everything I saw, and it turned into, “I did respond to some things i shouldn’t have, but it was only two females and I never met up with them. Nothing ever happened other than what you saw.” The thing is he deleted all of the emails, so there is so much more I am not aware of, and probably never will be. He also deleted the separate account before I got to see what was on it. Since then the email on his phone has been logged off, and I don’t have any of his passwords. So now I am 5 states away from my friends and family, with someone who may as well be a stranger to me. I dont know what to do, because I still feel he is good…somewhere beneath all the bullshit. Im just so heartbroken..

It is hard to deal with when you find out someone has been lying to you. It sucks that you are so far away from family and friends. Really stop and think about what you want and what you can handle. You can move back home if you need to, even thought it may be hard, or you can try to work things out. Your boyfriend may or may not become more honest. Only time will tell. You may want to ask him what he has been missing or if he really feels he is ready to commit. Try to be understanding to why he may be needing attention from other women. It may have nothing to do with you, and something that he is afraid of. Maybe he is insecure. It is hard to know why people can’t be faithful. If he can figure out why he is doing this, maybe he really will be able to stop. If he blames you or won’t look at his past, then you may be in for more lies in the future. Some people need their egos to be fed and can’t stay committed. Other people just aren’t ready for commitment or are afraid of it. Hopefully you’ll be able to work things out and he won’t need all this other attention from others. If you can’t, I hope you’ll be able to go back home and start over. Good luck!!

Well where to begin, after four years together i just found out my girlfriend has borderline personality disorder; even though we could see the symptoms. The point is, in February she and her best friend went on a trip to dubai and we had a small fight before she left but made up the moment she got there. After the several lies of not being able to drink cz she wasnt 21 and clubs didnt let them in; i found out they did get in and she invited a complete stranger to her hotel room. After her friend went to sleep she went home with him and you know the rest. I sensed something had happened and i begged her to tell me and i wouldnt get angry if she was honest. However, she hid it and kept making fights and acting like i was bad so i dump her, i didnt and eventually found out about what happened 3 months later. Were trying to fix things now, and we truly love each other and we both know this wont happen again- & i was guaranteed by her psychologist it wont; but i still have these anger feelings and betrayal feelings and the need for revenge what do you think i should do? Thank you in advance i feel better already having written this and talked about it for the first time after a month and a half since i found out thank you.

I’m glad you are trying to work things out. However, no one has a guarantee about any relationship. I tell people to go day by day after someone has cheated. As the days add up that they have been faithful to you, it becomes easier to trust again. You really want to work through your feelings of anger because they only way to get revenge is to break up. If you decide to stay you want to keep thinking about the reasons you love you and want to stay. Focus on the positive and that should help you not feel so angry and upset. If the negatives out weigh the positives, then you may want to rethink being in this relationship. I wish you luck, but be aware that no one has a guarantee about another person’s choices or decisions in the future. We all have risk when we enter into relationships. Some people are worth the risk, others aren’t. You decide if this girl is worth the risk or not. Good luck.

We’ve been in a long distance rel for 3.5 years (I’m the guy). I cheated once but had some rude conversations with the girl online. My gf found out and left me. Said she needed time and space which i tried to give her but she’s the type of person never opens up to emotions to talk out situations. about 2 months after she found out she told me she didnt want to see me but I still flew up. we spent a week together had sex and everything but when I came back things went back sour.

When she’s mad she says things she doesn’t mean. She still has all my pics up on her fb but doesn’t reply to me when I send her a msg to say hello. I been trying to decide if I should go to see her again because she doesn’t respond at all but I still see signs that she hasn’t let go, like my pics are still up on her facebook. She messaged me randomly a month ago to say ‘I forgive you’ and when i asked her about it later on she just got defensive. shes realy not one to let her emotions show.

anyway so I asked her does she still have hope that we could make it through this? cuz i have been waiting about 6 months (and shes the type of person that holds grudges). she didn’t respond. up to this day she hasn’t said we should move on (she said it once or twice in anger while we were arguing tho) but to me if she really was sure she didnt want the relationship again she would respond and say it’s not going to work you need to move on with your life. Right? that’s my take on it anyway.

Oh one note, the time i went to see her, she was telling me not to come but she told my friends that if i wanted to come up i should just do it. so maybe she’s really pushing me to see how much I’d be willing to do to get back with her?

This is a tough one…she isn’t being very straight forward, yet it seems you are pinning all your hope on this. It is always my advice to let someone know where you stand. The only thing you can control is yourself. I would encourage you to let her know what you want, then let it go from there. The ball will be in her court. If she doesn’t respond, then at least you can move on knowing you did your best to put yourself out there. If she comes back within a certain amount of time you will want to try to work it out, if she doesn’t then eventually you’ll have really moved on. You need to take care of yourself. Some people can forgive a mistake like cheating and others can’t. Remember that for the future because you really take a big risk when you betray a relationship like that. If she doesn’t come back, move on and learn from your mistake. I wish you luck.

I really need advice and I’m not quite sure who to go to….
My boyfriend and I have been together for a year and a half and I recently moved to Wyoming for 1 year until I move back to my hometown for college, he cheated on me the night before I moved, however, I found out from several other people before he actually admitted to it. I took him back and we’ve been working on trust again and it’s so difficult because he gets so frustrated that I never trust what he tells me….but can you blame me? I’ve been heartbroken, I suggested maybe we could come up with ground rules (for a lack of a better word)/boundaries, but also that he needs to put a lot more effort in. By ground rules I mean things like
•me being able to check his social media sites
•when I’m in town having full access to his phone
Etc

It’s extremely bad timing and so hard for me to trust him because we’re a thousand miles away, what advice do you have for me? I’m desperate

It is very hard to be in a long distance relationship with no trust. You have to balance your needs with his needs. If he is more open, it will be easier. In the meantime, you have to give him blind trust if you are so far away and be willing to get hurt again. This guy may or may not follow through, but only you know if it’s worth the risk. If he is open to your ground rules, then try to give him a little more trust. If he isn’t, well then you have some decisions to make, because the only person you can control in the relationship is yourself. If you don’t have trust, you’ll want more control. It won’t be easy, but its not impossible. Just keep trying to communicate the best you can and hopefully he’ll be patient with your anxiety and you can work on trying to trust more if you are willing to give him this second chance. Good luck.

Hi! Thanks so much for this post. I’m in a new relationship (about 9 months in) and my boyfriend has broken my trust. I found facebook messages (he left his facebook open on my phone) to girls, flirting with them. I was crushed. But decided to continue our relationship, this was in may. And in june I found texts to a coworker (male) about a female coworker, he claimed in the texts he was with her at her house and that they were doing things. I was done. He asked me to give him another chance, that it was just a joke between him and his friend and he didn’t want to lose me over that. I don’t think it’s fair to me how he spoke about this girl, i feel disrespected and just really insecure now. This girl is younger and she likes him, but he’s claimed shes too young and he doesn’t see her that way.I want to be with him and I feel weak because of it. He’s been trying to rebuild trust but I dont know where the line is. I dont want to invade his privacy, but when I ask who he is texting/ talking to he shows me. But I always feel hes still hiding something. I can’t help but let my hurt take over sometimes and I’m scared he’ll get fed up and give up on fixing what’s broken.
Help!

It sucks when someone breaks your trust. However, it doesn’t sound like you are completely giving up on him yet. I know it is hard to give someone another chance knowing they could hurt you again, but if you really aren’t ready to stop talking to him completely, then try to take things slow and see if anything else comes up. If he really has changed, then you’ll start to relax in time. If he hasn’t, then you’ll know for sure you have to cut ties. I wish you luck.

Hi, I’d really appreciate some feedback from my ordeal if that’s fine. I was with my ex (I guess. We’re pretty much like a couple except the whole “title”) for four years. When I was in my Sophomore year of college, I got a message from this girl on Facebook. She kept asking about my relationship and about my boyfriend. When I asked her why she was wanting to know, she just said “Ask —-, he’ll tell you.” I already had an uneasy feeling for about a month. You see, my boyfriend had made a new friend and these two were always going to this guy’s friend’s parties. So I called my boyfriend, letting him know the situation, and that’s when he came clean. I was completely wrecked and skipped class to go confront him. He told me he had met this chick at a party and he never meant to hurt me. From what he said, he was confused because he wanted to be with me but he felt he couldn’t because of my family (My parents always seemed to be picking at him. First complaining that he never says goodbye when he leaves. So my boyfriend would say goodbye. Then they complained he never addressed them by their names. My boyfriend also came from a pretty jacked up family -put into foster care while his mom was away in Mexico and his grandpa was abusing his grandma, his mom not showing any sign of affection, etc. He wasn’t used to being around my family who was all about hugs and talking and such. So soon my dad was complaining that my boyfriend was too quiet and that if he wants to be in the family he needs to give hugs, not hand shakes.) So with my parents poking at him and my older sister making him feel less than welcome, he said he just broke and tried to escape all of it by being with this girl. He told me he was sorry and that he loved me + he took me for granted and I’m the only one for him. So, a little more than a year has passed since everything happened. I slowly started to …. well I wouldn’t say gain trust exactly but I was warming back up to him, I just wasn’t sure if I was ready to be with him again. If that wasn’t enough, more drama ensued when my now ex’s friend (the one he always went to parties with) decided to tell me that my ex was talking to girls, kissing one and telling her to forget her love interest who was in Mexico because he could give her that attention (my ex and I had started to become a “couple” again, saying we love each other and that being together seemed to a possibility). I was a wreck again and confronted my ex about it. He said he had no idea why his friend would tell me that seeing as it wasn’t true. He knew the girl because he had seen her once when hanging out with hid friend, but he never tried to make any advances on her in any way – guess the girl was getting engaged. My guard was back up and I was and still am unsure. I asked him if we would ever be back together and he said we would, but he wanted to get back in to school first because he felt like he wasn’t good enough with just a job and no education or motivation to actually do something with his life. He got into school a couple months later and I was looking forward to actually being with him (in a way, I felt that if he wanted to be with me, he wasn’t going to try and pull anything on other girls. I mean, the guy cried like crazy the day everything blew up and I’ve only seen him cry once). But he never asked because he said it wouldn’t be as special seeing as I was going away on an internship for a month. So I’m on my last week away from home, and I keep thinking of all the possibilities that he’s doing stuff (kind of like taking this opportunity of me being away to get everything out of his system before we get together). I’m just torn right now. I feel like maybe I’m just overthinking everything because I’m scared that he’s gonna find someone much prettier, skinner, and better than little ol’ me. He keeps assuring me that he doesn’t want to be with anyone else, and that he really wants to be with me. How do I stop over thinking all these things? And how can you trust someone after they cheated on you so severely? I’m trying to let go of what happened but I’m always thinking that one day he’ll do it again. I trust him but then I don’t. I need help -.- SORRY FOR THE ESSAY BUT GOTTA GET THOSE DETAILS IN THERE!

Thanks for sharing your story. I wish there was an easier way to gain back trust. It sounds like you aren’t ready to really break up and cut off ties. So, your only option is to try to get through the pain and work on building your confidence in yourself. If you are treating him well, he’d be an idiot to screw that up. And if he screws up again, you have the choice to leave and move on. Until then, continue to communicate your fears with him, but realize that he can’t reassure you. Only you can reassure yourself that he wants to be with you and until you get further proof otherwise, try to work on trusting him again. Good luck!

Thank you Becca for this article. This was really insightful and mind opening but I would like to share my story with you and get your advice.
Ive been with my boyfriend for 6 months now and recently I told him I cheated on him twice, the first time I was over a friends house and I was talking to some guy casually alone and he kissed me but I never told my boyfriend because one he didn’t know I went over my friends house and doesn’t like the idea of me drinking so I promised it wouldn’t happen again but then 2 months later my good friend was having a birthday party and my boyfriend couldn’t go with me so I went without him knowing and the day after I didn’t remember what happened and according to my friends I tap kissed my guy friend but that was it. Feeling devastated I told him both incidents and he was upset and disappointed at me for cheating and lying to him. He gave me a second chance even though I told him I knew I didn’t deserve it but he said I had to show him he wasn’t wrong in doing so and that I was worth it. So to help recovery I changed my phone number and he also wanted me to delete all my guy friends number knowing he couldn’t trust me talking to them anymore, so I did it what he asked me to do. Even though I feel its unfair to leave my childhood best guy friend knowing he’s helped me a lot but I think it is the right thing if Im trying to gain back his trust. Right? (In general he didn’t let me hang out with any of my guy friends) He checks my phone here and there and recently had me get an app to know where I am, I feel like its invading my privacy and personal space but I know he has the right to even though I do get defensive since I like to have my stuff to my own even though I don’t have anything to hide. Recently he told me he feels like if he doesn’t try to be strong for himself or this relationship that it will fall apart and that we would be over with but he doesn’t want that to happen. He told me he tries to put it behind but he feels more hurt each time, I don’t know what to do, I love him to death and I realized my mistakes, he’s such an amazing guy and has done many things for me but I feel so guilty of what I did and I just want things to be back to normal but I just don’t know how to fix what is now broken. I just want to gain his trust back.

Thanks for your comment. First, let me just say, I’m concerned that you had to lie to him about going to your friend’s house and to a birthday party. I’m concerned because it either means he already didn’t trust you and was controlling your actions, OR you have a habit of lying that could cause more problems down the road. Either way, it is a cause for concern. If you are hiding things from him because of his reaction, it could be very hard for you to win his trust back. He already didn’t trust you before you did anything and he will only become more controlling with time, no matter how you try to reassure him. If you were lying for no reason, then I’m concerned your feelings for him aren’t as strong as you may think. Either way, your relationship isn’t in a healthy place. It is totally your choice to stay in a relationship with a person who can’t trust you, however, be prepared because it will be extremely difficult. You will have to bend over backwards and this usually causes resentment and if he doesn’t gain trust over time your relationship will eventually become almost impossible to live with. I hope he does gain some trust, but it sounds like his trust issues started before you came into the picture. If you love him, try to be patient, but know that you deserve to have someone give you a second chance and not keep constant tabs on you just to cure his own anxiety. It’s okay to give in for awhile to help gain his trust, but after a certain amount of time, he has to respect your privacy and trust that you love him or it is going to negatively impact your relationship. Good luck!

I’m not sure if you still respond to this blog..but here goes.
I’ve been dating my current bf for about two and a half years. About a week ago I found a flash drive in his room. This flash drive was a collection of every dirty picture he’s ever received from a girl–whether the girls just sent dirty pictures, to some of the folders being from ex girlfriends. Well one of the girls on there was my friend (so I thought)..so I confronted her and asked why the heck she was sending my bf pics..so she tells me “I’ve been meaning to tell you for a long time, but I couldn’t. It was more than just pictures..things happened between us last May, and he wasn’t just with me either.” To summarize, I find out a week ago that he has this stupid flash drive, AND year and a half ago he slept with my friend 4 times and one other girl (who was a virgin) one time. When I first heard about him cheating, he was in denial. It took several hours before he came clean. I was also able to see when he last accessed the flash drive, and he viewed it about a month ago. I bought a house about 3 weeks ago (luckily just me on the mortgage) but he moved in with me. When I found out about the drive, he cried and begged for one more chance..that he made a huge mistake and he needed me to fight one more battle to give him a chance to change. A few hours later I found out about the cheating, and he gave the same song and dance.. I told him this was ridiculous..he told me he was done lying after the flash drive, and less than a day later the lie came out about the cheating.
We were on the rocks when the cheating occurred..but I never in a million years thought he’d cheat on me..his dad had an affair on his mom..so I figured he’d never want to put someone through what his dad put his mom through. He freaked out, broke down, said he was way too much like his dad, way more than he ever wanted to be. He said he kept the pics and looked at the pics because he was insecure about himself..and it was some sort of way to fill his ego, tell himself people think he’s attractive and use the drive to boost his self-confidence.
So here’s where we’re at now. We are going to church now. We’ve gone twice so far. He gave me his fb password. He’s always been stern about never wanting to give out his password. He changed his phone number. We both went through and deleted every girl in his phone and on fb aside from family members and his boss. He is going to go to counseling starting next week to work on his issues with chronic lying and talk to someone about how he tries to fill his ego in ways that aren’t healthy. I also found out he talked to his mom about what he’s done…his mom is very religious, I was super shocked to know he opened up to her about it. I could tell he was crying when I got home, and she was texting him so I know that wasn’t a crock. He’s been super good about leaving his phone on loud and out in the open rather than on silent in his pocket like he used to. He checks fb in front of me. the steps he is taking to change are wonderful…my biggest problem: how do I feel good about myself again? I was always insecure when I compared myself to his ex gf..and then I find out he chose to look at pictures of her and other girls rather than me on his flash drive. Plus he cheated on me. How to I get the thoughts out of my head that he’s imagining his flash drive when he’s with me..or the fact that a year and a half ago he was unfaithful…I made him get tested before he kissed me. Now I want to try and get this crap out of my head before I let him lay a hand on me in any other physical way..but I don’t know how to not feel insecure about my looks..the pics from that drive are way too far in my head than I would have ever wanted.
Thanks..

It sucks to be cheated on and have your confidence stripped away. However, no one else can make you feel good about yourself. That comes from within. If he is going through all this trouble to win back your trust you need to push past the lie in your head that you weren’t good enough. I don’t think his cheating was about you, I think it was about him and his insecurity. If he starts to be secretive again, then you may want to confront him about that. However, if he is being open, you may want to give him this chance to see if he really can change. Some people do learn from their mistakes. Only time will tell. You aren’t stupid for trying again as long as you are smart about it. Work on improving your confidence with or without him and you’ll be golden.

Hi dear. I really need your help. me and my gf have been in a relation for over 1 year and half. we were great together. it all started when I got my university approval to study masters in France. My gf started to cry and she was really sad that am leaving, I told her that if she wants me to stay then I’ll stay. She said go its our future, but she asked me if she can start working at a school as an assistant teacher. I need to clarify that we are from a closed comunity where for example I don’t have any girl friends and she doesn’t have any boy friends. I said ok because I knew that she will be able to spend sometime out of home and stop being sad all the time for my absense. When I was abroad I kept acting and showing my love and she did to. we had some problems when discussing some subjects like the wedding party and similar subjects.
after a while she started to act cold. she stoped to call as much as before. she stoped doing alot of the things we are used to. I noticed and tried to fix it from there but I couldn’t. she started to spend a lot of time online. I call her and she ignores my calls and call back after like 2 or 3 hours with the same execuse always (my mobile was silent or I was sleeping). I came here before 7 days for my winter break and she was still cold and things were getting worse. I discovered that her family started to reject me. and everytime I call her I find that her line is busy. I knew that she was talking to another guy. I got her calls log and found a number and called that number without saying my name. He was a teacher in her school.
I got mad and called her yelling and I was shocked that she replied yes he is my friend and we are not doing anything wrong and she started saying that I did a terrible mistake by calling him. they were talking ike more than 3 hours a day. I said something bad about him and she started to stop me and defend him that he is a good person and that I shouldn’t say anything bad and she respects him and I should to.

after that we met like 3 times and at the last time she said that she wants to fix everything. I know that she loves me alot. and I adore her. I can feel it. but… she is not showing me any regret. she admited that he was trying to get along with her and she was on the way to start. I told her that you will have to quit your job and she refused. maybe I did a bad thing offering a second chance before she asked for it. now she told me that she will stop talking to him after 7 days. she is very defensive a lot of times and I still can’t touch her mobile phone. she is blaming me for traviling. I can’t wait for 7 days, she told me that she will not replace me with anyone and he doesn’t mean anything to her. but she answered his call while i was with her. am really confused. I want to give this relation a second chance. but I don’t want her to take me for granted. I want to feel safe again. She talks and she says that she will fix everything. but she is not doing anything. she is still online alot. she is still talking to him. and she is refusing to call what she did a cheating. I can’t wait because I have to go back to France after 14 days.
Please help :(
Thanks in advance

Sorry I haven’t been on my blog for so long to answer this…It is hard to work on something when the other person isn’t cooperative with you. You can’t make her be open with you. You can ask her for what you need to build trust, but it is in her control to give that to you or not. If she can’t or won’t give you what you need then you will eventually move on because it will become too painful to stay. Keep trying until you feel you can’t try anymore, but remember, it takes two people to make a relationship and you can only control so much.

Sorry this is long but there is a lot to it. We had been together for 2 1/2, almost 3 years. We have been broken up now officially for 5 weeks. But over the past few months we have been off and on with breaks. We started to grow apart this summer because he had more classes in the summer semester. I missed him and tried to keep busy. I tried to make some more friends because him and I were always together and I think that made us more of one person than two separate people that were dating. I was a trainer for some people and was friendly with the guys I was training. We texted and I told them about my boyfriend. They laid off a little but not much. I should have just stopped answering. Anyways, come fall semester, I get back and was so excited to see my boyfriend. He went the first day and hung out with this guy that he is not even great friends with. I thought we were supposed to hang out so immediately I was hurt. Then the series of breaks began. I continued to text with one of the guys I trained and continued the training. My boyfriend was even busier with school and his new friends. He began drinking more. I told him I was not okay with that and he should cut back some (he had some issues in the past with it related to him and I). I hung out with the guy I trained and thought other people would be there but they weren’t. I left as soon as I could and just didn’t mention that it was the two of us to my boyfriend. The only thing I did was stretch him. (that may sound weird but he is an athlete and that is what I do everyday with everyone). The next time I hung out with him I talked about my boyfriend and it was just the guy and I again. I had a feeling it would be but I wasn’t sure. I didn’t want to worry my boyfriend but I know I should have told him. This time I massaged him for like a minute on his back and he stretched me just so I could see how it felt. Didn’t really work because I was in jeans and a sweater.

I got some bad news about a job so my boyfriend wanted to go out and hang out with some of my coworkers and people I train. I said I wanted to just stay in and cuddle. He kept pushing it I think because he thought it might make me feel better and he was very stressed. He ended up getting really drunk and smoking (both of which are old issues for us years ago). We got in a huge fight. The next day we went to breakfast but I was very hurt. We decided to go on a break. The next weekend he went away to visit family. He wanted me to go but I was stuck at work and I was too late to go with him. I tried to keep busy by doing my homework and watching movies. My best friend was out of town and basically I only hang out with her and my “boyfriend”. I ended up hanging out with the one guy I train and my “boyfriend” said it was okay to dance and hang out but nothing else. I did not break that but it did get very touchy so I told my boyfriend in person the next day when he got back. I told him about everything as far as the texting and being alone the times we hung out.

He took some more time to figure things out and ended up drinking a lot and getting a little out of control. We moved past it and started to hang out but not officially date. Things were still a little weird and we both were experiencing some hurt. I was ready to move forward but I wanted to make sure there were no feelings with the guy. I asked my “boyfriend” if it was okay to go and if it would jeopardize our future then I would turn around and come home to him and put it behind us. I just wanted to be fair. He told me to go. I went and it was clear that I didn’t feel anything for this guy. He asked if I wanted to dance and we did and it led to sex. I didn’t kiss him or anything like that. It was purely sex and it was like 2 minutes max and I felt so gross. Idk why this guy had some power over me to stay when I knew what a jerk he was. It was almost like a rebound (usually rebounds are jerks) that I had during a break of our relationship. I went home and sat in the shower forever and scrubbed every inch of me.

I told my boyfriend that I made a mistake and that I realized immediately that I was an idiot and he was the one for me. We had just hit some hard parts in our relationship and handled it the wrong way. It took some time but he moved past it some with some drinking and then we made up by making love and cuddling and sleeping over and watching movies and spending time together. We went home for break and it was weird timing with it all so we fought some. When I got back he ended things. He said he forgives me for everything and that he is not mad. He still loves me and maybe sometime in the future we could have something but he just wants a clean break. I know why he changed like this because he told me he wanted and loved me but I said I wasn’t sure because I felt so guilty I couldn’t even look at myself anymore. I really screwed things up.

I bumped into him the week after and he was very nice and I was very upbeat and didn’t mention the breakup. We talked and got on the bus together. I said it was nice to see him and asked if he had to get to class. He said not yet and asked if I wanted to get a coffee. We did and it was so nice. We talked about a lot of things going on in our lives. We were parting to go to class and he asked me for a hug and there was a moment when we pulled away where we almost kissed. He looked me in the eyes and said I looked really good.

We went home for winter break two days later. I haven’t talked to him since (no contact for 31 days). It was my birthday the other day and he didn’t say anything (we said it when we broke up though and merry christmas and happy new year). I understand why and I know he could talk to me if he and I were over each other. I am hopeful that it will work out. I have thought things through and written down my feelings the past few weeks. I wrote up the feelings and watched how I have changed in this short period of time. A major event like this is something that can change a person for good and quick. I have already improved myself and worked on a lot of things. I know I still have room to improve and I am keeping track and writing down a lot of things. I put myself in his shoes and have thought about it all. I get he is hurt and thinks he can never trust me again but I believe it is possible.

A few years ago he treated me very badly because of his drinking and smoking. He got cleaned up and when he came back the first week he lied to me and did it behind my back. I know that is not cheating but it is about trust. I never thought I would get over it but I did. I forgave him and eventually I moved past it all within about 6 months. I know everyone is different but this is the only real mess up I have had in my relationship with him. I know that doesn’t mean I deserve a second chance.

I think it all began not only because he was distancing himself but also because it was my last semester. Being away from him next semester and however long after was hard to deal with. A lot of our relationship has been long distance and it hurts so much. I realized in a way I self-sabotaged our relationship. It’s not really what I want though. I needed to grow up and realize that we both have separate jobs and responsibilities meaning that we can’t always be together. It just seemed impossible to my heart to go from always being together to nothing. I know now that I have lost him that that is just stupid. I lost someone I really love, no matter what I did, I do love them so much.

I love him, I know we can get past this if we work on it together. I have no contact and completely cut off the guys in my life as far as the ones I used to train. I am done with college now. I have focused on my family and friends and my new job. I think now is the best time for a new start. My question is what do I do as far as no contact? I know he is not the guy that ever really makes the first move or decision whether it is making a decision of what to eat on a date with me or what movie to watch or to talk to me first after an argument. I don’t want to lose him, I don’t want to contact him too soon but I don’t want to wait too long and miss a chance we have at being happy.

Also recently i figured out a lot…i have learned to forgive myself but not forget what i did and learn from it. I was not ready to make it work right after with him because of my guilt and it sent ao much negativity that it ruined our chances at the time…he said he forgives me..also we would have to do long distance for a while and he didn’t want to unless his heart was 100% in it..he will be going to grad school close to me and i want to move where the school is because i was born there and all my relatives are there..i think the cheating stemmed from me loving him so much that i couldn’t bear to do long distance for the next year or however long..long distance in the past was so hard for us..I have grown up quite a bit over the past month. I have a great job, have improved my relationships with friends, family, have more respect for myself, am less insecure and am proud of the person I have chosen to become. I haven’t contacted him at all which shows him that I have changed and respect his wishes. In the past I would have bugged him about a fight we had until we worked it out. How do I show him I am trustworthy if he gave up on having a new relationship with me?

It is hard to prove anything to someone unless they want to try to work it out. I would suggest just being yourself and let him come to you. If not, like you said, you feel better overall making the changes you did. If he can’t appreciate them, hopefully someone new will. If he will give you another chance, then do your best to earn his trust and his respect by being open and honest. Hopefully over time, it will work itself out. You’ve been through a lot already, so be confident that you can survive this as well! Good luck!

I just need to vent so here goes. I have been with my girlfriend for a little over a year and recently made out with a girl from college a couple times. Later she found out I had a girlfriend and humiliated me in front of all her friends. I apologized to her individually as well as some of her friends but I don’t know what her friends think of me. I got along well with our mutual friends and when they acknowledge me around campus I don’t know what they’re thinking. I have changed some of my friends who were encouraging this horrendous behavior but just don’t want my college reputation damaged forever. I thought I was above this and feel guilty every day but just don’t know how to get over it.

It may take time for things to blow over. No one wants their mistakes to be publicized. It is hard to go through it. You may want to ask some of your friends directly what they are thinking. However, know that many people make mistakes and their reputations aren’t ruined forever. If you correct your mistake, in time people will see that and know they can trust you. This will be in your distant past eventually. In the meantime, take care of yourself and focus on being a loyal trusting friend and person from here on out.

Thanks for writing this article. I need some advice myself. This is fresh and painful..

My boyfriend of not even a year (although it seems as though we’ve been together our whole lives) just cheated on me. Not physically, but with pictures and emails. Firstly I’ll tell you a little bit about him:

He struggles with alcohol abuse. He grew up with an abusive father who had alcohol and substance abuse issues as well. He was abused physically and emotionally and he watched the same things happen to his mother. He himself, is an extremely caring, genuine and sensitive person. However his past has left some serious emotional scars. He has trouble hearing any constructive criticism.. even when it comes from a place of love. When in the past I have tried to mention his drinking he became angry and defensive. He is currently going through some court issues (which I’m supporting him through) from something he did a few years back, dealing with a house that may cause him to go bankrupt, and working in a place 17 hours away from home for 20 days at a time. So needless to say, he is both damaged and overwhelmed.

He’s been going away for work up North. I could feel him pulling away, distancing himself. He was texting less, and in his texts was showing a lot less emotion than usual. He and I had a great relationship, and we’re the mushy type. So instead of his usual novel texts with hearts and kisses, I was getting one and two word answers…

I knew something was wrong, but any time I mentioned that I felt as though he was pulling away he would get angry with me. He would tell me that I didn’t appreciate the effort he was putting in, and that I was reading into things too much. When I would become short with him, the hearts and kisses would return.

As someone who has been unfaithful in past relationships.. I recognized the signs of cheating. Whether he was talking to someone else, or being physical with someone else I had the suspicion that his attention was elsewhere.

He got home on Thursday night, and on Saturday I hopped onto his laptop while he was in the shower. I discovered that he had created an email address specifically to put an ad on craigslist for a **** buddy of sorts. Someone had responded and they exchanged about 4-5 emails. It was purely sexual.. explicitly so and it included some photos of both of them.

I called him out of the shower and confronted him immediately. He paced back and forth for a while and then we had a tremendous breakthrough. He cried and revealed to me that he had no idea how to deal with what was going on in his life. He was overwhelmed by court, by his money issues, by work.. and I was the only thing he was able to take it out on. He started pushing me away because on top of everything else, he didn’t know how to react to being so far away.. and having to constantly reassure me about texting enough, calling enough, missing me enough. He said he felt as though I was another stressor, and the only one he could actually push away. He said that he let his drinking get out of hand, and every night after work he was drinking himself into a stupor.. and he made a terrible decision.

I read him a letter that I had written when he was gone.. I spoke in it about all of our experience as a couple that had made us fall in love. He listened and sobbed throughout the entire letter. When I asked him if he was okay, he asked me to please keep reading to him. I finished and told me that he’s never felt more stupid in his life. He said that even when he THOUGHT he may have wanted someone other than me, he couldn’t stop thinking about me. That the only person he can picture his life with is me, and that he’ll do ANYTHING to make this right. We talked about it all. He told me that he is willing to go into counseling, cut back on his drinking and we are both going to delete our social media accounts. We are removing the passcodes on our phones and we are going to be open and honest with each other about everything.

I understand the he is taking the right steps to correct this.. but I’m struggling with how to cope with my feelings. I keep having flashbacks of the things I saw in the emails. This woman saw things that only I should see, and he said things to her that should only be said to me. How do I get past that? Also.. we’re still being intimate. I want to continue on, work on improving our trust and relationship.. but I want to go about this the right way. I don’t want him to subconsciously feel as though I’m rewarding his bad behavior. You know what I mean? He cheated, and now our relationship is becoming better than ever. That scares me. I don’t want to create a pattern.

I wish there was an easy way to get past it when someone cheats. It is a daily thing to forgive and try to move forward. You can give him a chance to prove to you that he loves you and wants to change. His actions over time will prove whether he is faithful or not. If he continues to cheat, then it will be easier for you to decide to leave. It’s hard to leave if you aren’t sure if someone can change or not. In the meantime, keep the communication open and hopefully it will get easier if he really is trying. Focus on what you can control in the situation which is your own emotions and thoughts. Try to focus on the positive and what you where you want things to go and work to make things as good as you can. However, he has to do his part too. Good luck.

Hi Becca,
Thank you for writing this post. It has really helped me. Hopefully your still checking the comments! My boyfriend of a year and I have hit a really hard patch. We meet this time November 2013 at a friends birthday party and hit it off immediately. It was as if we were made for each other. In the matter of 7 days of meeting, he asked me to be his girlfriend. We meet each others families in December and things were so great. I was in love and he was in love with me. Until October 2014 things were great and we spent all out free time together, unless he was cycling with his team – a hobby he has. We had our issues and arguments, but were able to communicate our feelings to each other by sitting and talking. He pointed out things that he would like me to work on, passive-agressiveness when I get mad at him, and I pointed out things that I wanted him to work on, taking time from his very busy work schedule to do fun activities with me. It was a wonderful relationship. Beginning in June we fell into the settled stage after the infatuation period. We were good with each other but didn’t need to be all over each other constantly. I felt a little abandoned since this was my first real relationship and I wanted him to want me all the time. And, in June other things in my life started to fall apart. When I met my boyfriend I did not have a job, even after graduating. I was interning and then became a temp in commercial real estate. My boyfriend has a very demanding job for a consulting firm and is at work about 10-12 hours a day. In June the company I was temping for decided that even though they offered me a full-time job, they weren’t able to employee me due to downsizing. I was crushed. My boyfriend knew this but could not change his daily habit of work, bicycling after work for 1-2 hours, and then coming over to my place, the day I called him crying telling him that I really needed him to come over after work and give me a hug. That was one of the first signs that he wasn’t able to recognize my needs, something that possibly is related to his OCD. Then in the matter of a few months, my grandmother died, I had to find another job – which I did, and my perfectly good car stopped working on the way home from my grandmothers funeral. By August I was just so overwhelmed about everything happening outside my relationship, I began to act different in my relationship. I cried more, acted more needy and then got mad at him for stupid reasons. In September during another silly argument he said to me that I was sad more of the time and maybe I should talk to someone. At the time, I was offended, but now I know I should have begun talking to a therapist.

In October after a wonderful day with my boyfriend, I did something really stupid after going out with him and his friends at night. We had a wonderful day together, but I was holding in all these feeling of stress and being overwhelmed and sad with other parts of my life. I like to show I’m strong, not weak, I’ve been this way since I was very young, and deal with my stress by working out or controlling my eating. Since this amazing relationship I didn’t worry about exercising every single day for a set amount of time or controlling my eating because I finally felt like myself and truly happy for once in my life. But by choosing not to have those coping mechanisms available to me, I turned to another coping mechanism – drinking. I’ve been on the borderline of having a drinking problem since college and had a number of warning signs. Whenever I drank my boyfriend and I would get into stupid arguments, started by me, and the next day I wouldn’t remember. He told me that he did not like this and wanted me to work on this behavior. I was working on it and he recognized this. But that night all I wanted to do was forget and stop being uncomfortable in my life. I don’t remember much, and waking up on the couch wondering where my boyfriend was. My friends filled me in that I had kissed a guy in a bar, a random guy, and Greg had seen this. He ran out of the restaurant and I followed crying on the street. My friend eventually got me home. I was a wreak. Later that day I texted him and he told me how hurt and sad he was. That his brother was going to come over and collect my boyfriends clothes for the week. He told me that he has to think about things and would let me know when he was ready to talk. I was and still am devastated. I couldn’t go to work for a week and went to stay with a friend to just get away. My boyfriend texted me two days later and asked if we could talk. Unfortunately we ended up talking on the phone, and 2 minutes or less into the conversation he began sobbing and saying, ‘I can’t do this, it hurts to much.’ Immediately i thought he was breaking up to me and I continued to sob and tell him how sorry I was. That this had nothing to do with him, but my own emotional problems and my drinking problems. I haven’t spoken to him in a month, since the phone call. What I have been doing since then was writing him letters – the first was a letter explaining why I did this to him, what I wasn’t telling him, and how I am going to change myself to make myself stronger and stronger in a relationship, hopefully with him. Then I mailed two more letters, giving a week in-between each, with memories of good times we had and continuing to let him know that I’m committed to changing my habit that led to me cheating on him. In all the letters I told him that I would be here when he was ready to talk.

He’s still hasn’t been in touch. I feel so lost and like I have no control, which I don’t. He is still friends with me on Facebook and Instagram. At my apartment, I have a lot of his clothes still (which his brother knew when he picked up some of my boyfriends clothes, saying he’d be back if he was told to come back), his key, and a lot of his family’s possessions since they recently moved and I took some things to store for them. He still has my clothes, which his brother did not bring back when his brother collected my boyfriends clothes. All I want is clarity about our relationship. I don’t need answers, I just want to know if I should hope that he will get in touch. Its been really hard on me, I can’t eat, I can’t sleep and I’ve lost 20 lbs since I last spoke to him. But I also know there are things that I have to work on, like finding happiness with myself, which has always been an issue. I don’t want this relationship to end and would like to know if I’ve misinterpreted something and we are over. Can you please give me advise? What should I do? I feel as if my life is on hold.

Angie, Thanks for your comment. I’m sorry things are so conflicted in your relationship right now. It is really hard to cope when you feel so out of control. I would recommend that you let him know you would like some clarity about your relationship and ask him if he is wanting to break up or if he still needs more time. If he asks for more time, it is up to you whether or not you want to give that to him or move on. If he doesn’t answer, I would do my best to move on. If he comes back and you still want him, great, if he doesn’t come back, then eventually you will be in a better place. It sucks to not know, but you can only do so much on your end. I wish you luck and don’t be so hard on yourself. Everyone makes mistakes, some people are more forgiving, other people are not. It depends on their fear level and their personality. Hopefully he’ll give you another chance, but either way, remember that you are smarter and better if you learn from your mistake. Take care.

Thank you! I actually sent him a Faceboom message (since we are still “friends”) clearly spelling it out that I need him to let me know some clarity – is he processing still? Or have I mis-interpreted something and has has already broken up with me? I know he has read it but hasn’t reaponded and hasn’t de-friended me either. His friend who is a mutual friend of ours, reached out to me since I wasn’t contacting any of by boyfriends friends, and said he has looked at that message many times since I sent it last week but doesn’t know what he wants. I was in a bad place last week, but over the weekend I have begun to realize that I need to find my own happiness. Our relationship became my life. The happiness I felt from the relationship was my entire happiness since I’ve never really been happy with me or my life and struggled over the years. This time apart I can finally live life and discover the things that make me happy. Strengthening myself will mean that if we try to work on this or I move on, my relationships in the future will be stronger and I won’t put as much of a burden on my boyfriend to make me entirely happy. Also, I haven’t consumed alcohol since the night of my mistake. I realize that I have a problem with alcohol, that was evident before this. Its not going to be part of my life in the future. Last weekend I went to a friends birthday at a brewery and was able to just drink soda and water the entire night. It made me feel good that I accomplished going out and not drinking and my friends were very supportive.

Anyway, I’ve taken your advice and others advice to just live my life in the ways I can, right now. By no means am I going to look for another relationship. I continue to love Greg and miss him, but I also realize that we both need the time. He’s not an easy guy to figure out. We are both damaged in our own ways. Some of those ways we really related on and made our connection so strong, to find someone to make us laugh and happy every second of every day. But he is an avoider and does not like confrontation, while I am more of a taker, need to know what people are thinking. He keeps things inside and a apart of me things he knows he is in control in this situation. Everything I’ve sent him so far let’s him know that I will wait, that I’m working on myself, but I still love him and miss him. That I’ll wait however long for him to be ready to talk. Now I’m changing my tune. In this time I’m also able to sit with my feelings and realize that life won’t give you all the answers. Sometimes when you feel as if you need them most. It’s okay I don’t know, because I’m finally finding my happiness, discovering my strength. In the end, if it takes to long for him to open up and communicate, then I may have moved on. Events before this one, it has been made clear that he can’t see and give me the emotional needs I ask from him. Arguments we’ve had in the past are brought up again in later discussions and he always has to be right. Now, not responding to my explicite questions and telling him how much damage this event is doing to me as well, it feels like he can’t get out of his own emotional roller coaster and possibly OCD behaviors to see that an answer, any answer would really help me. If he deals with out of control situations the way he is dealing with this one, then I’m not sure I can stay in this relationship. People aren’t perfect. We make mistakes. I won’t be perfect after this. Life sometimes gets out of control and it’s about the way we handle that. I’ve decided to take this situation and learn, grow and change so that I never risk hurting someone I love in the future. I’m stronger for it. So I’m really contemplating whether he is the one for me and whether I will be ready to work on this with him if that is what he would like to do.

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